Business groups recommend ways U.S. govt can double trade

An employee working as a money changer prepares U.S. dollar currency for a customer in Jakarta October 28, 2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama needs to quickly win approval of free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and start talks on new trade deals with Brazil, India and others if he if serious about doubling exports, U.S. business groups said on Monday.

"We must be extremely aggressive," Rosemarie Watkins, director for international policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation, told reporters.

Passing the three trade deals and negotiating new agreements could boost U.S. manufactured goods exports $100 billion by 2014, said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers.

The comments came on the final day for groups to make recommendations for Obama's National Export Initiative, which aims to double U.S. exports to around $3.0 trillion in five years.

Based on those ideas and its own deliberations, the Obama administration will issue a report in September on how it intends to achieve its goal.

Many of Obama's fellow Democrats are wary of trade agreements and are resisting his push to bring the pact with South Korea to a vote by early next year.

They blame manufacturing job losses on trade deals that opened the U.S. market to more imports and encouraged U.S. companies to move plants overseas.

Supporters say the pacts are good for the United States because they expand exports and reduce the cost of imported goods, giving consumers more choices.

The issue could play into U.S. elections in November, with Republicans criticizing Democrats for years of delay on trade deals while other countries have pushed ahead.

Vargo said the United States has to consider free trade deals with Brazil, India, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council if it wants to keep pace with export competitors.

Without that push and other major policy changes, long-trend economic trends suggest U.S. manufactured goods exports in 2014 will reach just $1.5 trillion, Vargo said.

That is about $300 billion less than is needed to double exports from $900 billion in 2009, he said.

Similarly, Bob Vastine, president of the Coalition of Service Industries, said he expected U.S. service exports to hit just $620 billion by 2014 under current policy, or about $340 billion less than needed to double exports.

The groups made other several recommendations for doubling exports, and said they hoped the Obama administration would spell out in its September report how much of a boost it expected from different initiatives.

Vargo estimated revamping Cold War-era export controls and boosting funding for government export promotion and export financing could together boost U.S. exports by more than $170 billion over the next five years.

Tackling nontariff barriers that block U.S. exports, making it easier for foreign business people to get visas to come to the United States and leaning harder on foreign governments to protect U.S. intellectual property rights could collectively add another $60 billion, he said.

A successful conclusion of the long-running Doha round of world trade talks also would give exports a shot in the arm. But many of those gains would not show up for years under current proposals in the talks, the groups said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Jackie Frank)