Trade liberalization creates jobs, fosters economic growth in the United States, and improves consumer choice and the standard of living of American families.

• Exports accounted for about 25 percent of U.S. economic growth in the 1990s. In the future, participation in the global economy will be even more critical to economic growth. Ninety-six percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States. U.S. producers must be able to reach those consumers to expand the U.S. economy and to create jobs.
• Lowering barriers to trade by even one-third will boost global economic welfare by as much as $613 billion, with gains to the U.S. economy of $177 billion a year. To the typical American family of four, that means an additional $2,500 a year.
• The benefits of liberalized trade are apparent from our past trade agreements. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements increased U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by $40 billion to $60 billion a year. When that is combined with lower prices on imported products, the average American family gained $1,000 to $1,300 a year from these two agreements.
• About 97 percent of exporters are small or medium-sized companies, which create three out of four new jobs. Those companies account for 30 percent of all U.S. merchandise exports.

Trade liberalization spurs growth in overseas markets for American-made products and generates opportunities for American workers by creating new and higherpaying jobs.

• Ten percent of all U.S. jobs (approximately 12 million) depend on exports. One in five factory jobs depend on international trade. Jobs that depend on trade generally pay about 13 to 18 percent more than the average U.S. wage.
• Trade creates U.S. job growth. Every $1 billion in exports of manufactured goods creates an estimated 15,000 new jobs; two to three times that number of additional jobs are created to support the new exportdriven products and personnel.
• U.S. plants that export increase employment 2 to 4 percent faster annually than plants that do not export. Exporting plants also are less likely to go out of business.

Restricting trade stifles economic growth, slows the creation of high-paying jobs, and harms consumers by driving up prices for goods and services.