Remarks by the President on Trade and Economy
Robinson Helicopter Company – Torrance California
For immediate release – January 30, 2008
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Los Angeles, California)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, all. So my daughters are
going to be envious -- I was introduced by Arnold.
(Laughter.) I appreciate you, Governor. Thanks for
your strong leadership; thanks for your friendship. You
know, California is a really important state for our country and
I think a lot of Californians appreciate the fact that you're
steady at the helm. Thank you for having us.
Frank, thank you very much for your hospitality. Some say,
why do you want to come to Robinson Helicopter Company?
Well, first, I love entrepreneurs and dreamers. And your
boy told me that you dreamt about a company and you started it in
your kitchen. Isn't it interesting? The company was
started in the kitchen, and now he's got the Terminator coming by
to herald the success. (Laughter.) I mean, this is --
I love America because we stand for dreams that can be
accomplished.
And so the first reason I'm here is I want to congratulate the
Robinsons for living a dream and for giving people good
work. Arnold and I had the pleasure of working the floor
and shaking hands with people who are making a living for their
families. And so you're building good helicopters, but more
importantly, you're providing people a chance to work, and I
appreciate that a lot.
The other reason I'm here is I want to spend a little time
talking about the economy and about what we can do to help in the
short term and in the long term.
Before I do, I do want to also welcome Congresswoman Jane
Harman. This is her district and I'm proud to have traveled
from Washington to California with her. Jane, thank you for
coming; appreciate your time being here. (Applause.)
And Dreier and Royce are with us too, as well -- that would be
Congressman Dreier and Congressman Royce. I appreciate you
all joining us, thank you for your time. Mayor, thanks for
coming.
I hope you're confident about our economy. I am.
We've got some short-term issues to deal with. Fourth
quarter growth slowed to .6 percent. In other words, there
are signs that our economy are slowing. There's some
uncertainty in the economy. But in the long run you've got
to be confident about your economy. Inflation is down,
interest rates are low, productivity is high. Our economy
is flexible, it is resilient. We've been through problems
before. As a matter of fact, we've been through problems
before since I was your President. We've had a recession,
corporate scandals, an attack on the United States of America;
we've had major national disasters, and every time we've come
through strong. And that what's going to happen this time,
too.
But the federal government can help. We can have some smart
policy out of Washington. And the smartest thing we can do
is to help deal with the uncertainty by putting about $145
billion into your pockets so you can spend it, which will help
this economy stay strong and, at the same time, part of that $145
billion is to provide incentives for businesses, large and small,
to invest. See, when you provide an incentive for a company
to invest, they go out and buy a machine. And when they buy
that machine, somebody has to put labor into the machine;
somebody is working.
So the whole purpose of a stimulus package is to have something
robust enough to make a difference, temporary enough that -- so
that we can balance our budget over time, and simple enough to be
effective. And as the Governor mentioned, we reached an
agreement with both Democrats and Republicans in the House of
Representatives on a package that's simple, robust, and
effective. And now the Senate is debating the issue.
And I understand people having their points of view, and of
course, we welcome points of view in Washington. There
appears to be a lot of them up there. (Laughter.)
But whatever the Senate does, they should not delay this
package. They should not keep money out of your
pocket. The sooner you get a check, the more likely it is
that the stimulus package will kick in and make a
difference. So my attitude is, if you're truly interested
in dealing with the slowdown of the economy, the Senate ought to
accept the House package, pass it, and get it to my desk as soon
as possible. That's what I want to talk about.
I also want to talk about trade. Now, people in our country
-- let's be perfectly frank about it, you hear them say trade
isn't any good; it doesn't help. If I were a worker at
Robinson, I'd be arguing against that. You've got good jobs
here. People are working, and 70 percent of what you make
gets sold overseas. So you can't tell the people at
Robinson Helicopter that trade isn't good. When 70 percent
of that which you manufacture gets sold somewhere else other than
the United States, they ought to have a sign walking in here and
say, trade is not only good, it is great; and we want the federal
government to make it easier for us to sell products.
That's what trade is really about, isn't it? If you're good
at something -- and you're good at making helicopters -- then you
ought to have your government making it easier to sell your
product, not harder. Mr. Robinson said 70 percent of the
revenues from his company are a result of products being sold
overseas. And that happens in a lot of companies in
America, by the way. As a matter of fact, it is estimated
that our growth last year, a third of that growth was caused by
exports. When people are selling something overseas, it
means somebody is working. And there's a lot of customers
overseas.
So one of the goals of this administration is to reduce trade
barriers. The interesting thing about what I'm about to
tell you on three free trade agreements that we're hoping
Congress votes on here pretty soon, is that we're not treated the
same way. In other words, they got their goods and services
coming to our country without a lot of tariffs -- and when we're
trying to sell into their countries, they're taxing it, which
makes it much harder to sell.
Reasonable policy says to nations, you treat us the way we treat
you. That's all we're asking for. We're saying to
countries, if your goods and services are coming here -- which,
by the way, are good for our consumers; like if you're a consumer
you want a lot of choices, you want a lot of -- you want a lot of
different options. But we want to be treated equally
too. Good trade policy is fair trade policy.
And so these trade agreements I'm about to describe to you level
the playing field. When I say "level the playing field," it
means we'll be treated equally. And that's important,
because we can compete with anybody, anytime, anywhere, just as
long as the rules are fair. That's what I think. I
think our workers are the best in the world. I said in the
State of the Union the other night, let's open the -- level the
playing field, open up markets, so the best workers in the world
can have the fruits of their labor sold overseas. And
that's what trade is all about. You got people in this
country saying, oh, trade doesn't matter. I'm telling you
it matters: It matters to our economy, and it matters to
the jobs right here at Robinson Manufacturer -- Robinson
Helicopter.
The other interesting thing about trade is, if you're working for
a company that's selling goods overseas, you're likely to be paid
higher wages. Trade yields better pay.
So what are you going to do about it, Mr. President? It's
one thing to talk about the benefits of trade. Well, we've
negotiated free trade agreements. In other words, we sat
down with countries and said, let's get a free trade agreement in
place. And we reduced barriers and tariffs through the
negotiations, and there are three such agreements before the
Congress. There was four; Congress recently passed a deal
with Peru. And we want to do the same thing with Colombia
and Panama and South Korea.
Now, for the person working here at Robinson, I don't know if you
know this, but when you try to sell into Colombia, part of your
-- part of the helicopter parts face a 5 percent surcharge.
That makes it harder to sell something in -- when something is
taxed, it's harder to sell into a market.
The free trade agreement we've negotiated will eliminate that
surcharge. It makes it more likely that these products will
be sold to Colombia and Panama. There's a 15 percent tax on
the helicopter you manufacture. I've been told there's a 15
percent tax, I believe there's a 15 percent tax, and I know that
a free trade agreement will reduce that tax -- which means it's
more likely you're going to sell a helicopter into Panama.
And when you're more likely to sell a helicopter to Panama, it
means you're more likely to keep work, that's what that
means.
Free trade means jobs for Americans. Free trade means good
paying jobs for Americans. And so Congress needs to pass
these agreements for the sake of economic vitality. And
Arnold talked about the effect for the state of California --
you're selling hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of goods
out of California to other parts of the world. And we need
to keep that trend going. I mean, if we [don't] want to
worry about our economy long-term, you need your government
knocking down barriers to our products and on goods and
services.
Congress is going to have a vote coming up pretty soon on
Colombia. If it were an easy vote I wouldn't be talking
about it, but it's going to be a tough vote. Some say trade
hurts our economy. These are good, decent people, I just
beg to disagree -- I respectfully disagree and would ask them to
think about the example of this company right here. Some
say it really doesn't matter. I think it matters a lot to
our standing in the world as to whether or not we support a
friend.
Colombia is an important country for our interests. They've
got a good President, named President Uribe. And he
inherited a tough deal, a tough situation where he's fighting off
drug lords and drug traffickers, people who are manufacturing
drugs that come and pollute our kids. And he's taking the
fight to this enemy. And he's an ally. And he wants
this free trade agreement passed. It's in his country's
interests.
And if we reject this opportunity to support a friend with good
economic policy, if we turn down this free trade agreement it
will hurt our relations in South America. It will give the
voices of false populism something to say. It is in our
strategic interests that we support democracies in our
neighborhood. And it's in our strategic interest and our
economic interest that the United States Congress passes this
free trade agreement with Colombia.
I'm looking forward to making the case for Panama and South
Korea, as well. The first vote coming up is Colombia.
And I'm looking forward to traveling this country, talking to
people about the benefits of free trade and the importance of
this free trade agreement. We're also going to try to get a
Doha round of trade, in other words, opening up -- around the
world opening up trade.
I hope you share the same concern I have about people living in
terrible poverty. You know, we're in this ideological
struggle against, I called them last night, "evil men," and I
meant what I said. There are people that murder the
innocent to achieve political objectives. And the only way
they can sell their ideology is when they find hopeless people,
and you can find hopeless people in places where there's no hope
because the economies are sick. The best way to help people
is not to give people your taxpayers' money, but to encourage
enterprise through commerce and trade. So the Doha round is
a great opportunity to advance prosperity around the world and
deal a serious blow to those who exploit the hopeless.
The other thing about trade that I want you to know is that
sometimes when trade takes place somebody loses work, and I
understand that -- and that's not a happy circumstance. And
the government has a -- ought to help people. One response
is, okay, let's just don't trade at all -- which would be bad, in
my judgment. The other response is, let's have job training
to help somebody get the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the
21st century. It's called Trade Adjustment Assistance, and
it's a vital program.
And when you combine Trade Adjustment Assistance with our
community colleges, what you've got is a great opportunity to
help people who've lost a job because of trade find the skills
necessary to get a better-paying job. And so for the
critics who say, well, people lose work, my answer is the
benefits for the country as a whole are important, but we will
help you, the individual, get your life back together with good
education.
And finally I want to say something about investment. It's
very important for our country to be open for investment without
sacrificing our national security. There's some countries
around the world that have accumulated large amounts of
money. Sometimes it's our money. And it makes sense
to say to somebody, sure you can invest in America. I
noticed the other day one of these Wall Street firms had a big
chunk of foreign money invest on their -- in their balance
sheet. We ought to say, you bet, absolutely, you're welcome
to invest in the United States of America. Investment means
jobs and productivity increases.
Now, we're going to do it in a way that doesn't sacrifice
national security. We'll analyze investments. But
this nation ought to not close our doors and be fearful. We
ought to be confident because we're a great people. We've
overcome problems throughout our history. There will be
other problems in the future. And every time we can
overcome them.
So I appreciate you giving me a chance, Mr. Robinson, to come and
visit with you. I especially was pleased to meet your
employees. It's a good group of folks, highly motivated and
hard-working, and they were very hospitable, and for that the
Governor and I are very grateful.
Governor, I've got my own helicopter driver, thank you.
(Laughter.) But I'm proud to be with you, and more
importantly, I'm proud to be with you all. God bless
America. Thank you.