Can Obama’s Call for Doubling Exports Produce Bipartisan Support?

ABC News’ David Chalian reports:  During his State of the Union address two weeks ago, President Obama touched only briefly on the hot button issue of trade.   His proposed doubling of exports in the next five years to help create two million jobs here at home was received with applause.   “If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s exports,” said Fred Hochberg who serves as Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank.   “We may have debates about trade, but there’s not a lot of debate about exports.  President Obama’s talking about doubling exports in the next five years. We are the largest manufacturing country in the entire world. No country makes more manufactured goods than the United States so we’re in a very good position to double our exports,” Hochberg added. During his appearance on ABC News’ “Top Line,” Hochberg played down the significance of stalled trade agreements with Columbia, South Korea, and Panama as an impediment to spurring job growth through doubling US exports. http://abcnews.go.com/politics/topline “The free trade agreements are important and he’s certainly signaled his support for that, but we can double exports, they are not the barrier or the impediment to doubling exports,” Hochberg said of the pending trade agreements. “I mean we have seen at the Export-Import Bank of the United States, our year ends September 30 as the federal government does, we’re up 50 percent in the first 3 months of this fiscal year.  We did triple the loans we did a year ago so we are seeing increased activity.  We are seeing increased activity and if you look at the economic picture for 2009 the one area that really led more than anything else was exports, Hochberg added. We also chatted with Hochberg, one of the highest gay ranking officials in the Obama Administration, about the president’s call to begin the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this year.  Be sure to watch our entire interview with Fred Hochberg, HERE: Also on “Top Line” today, Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News and The Week dropped by to weigh in on Sarah Palin’s weekend on the campaign trail and in the tea party lime light. When we asked Carlson about Sarah Palin’s ability to play political celebrity above the fray, she said that may eventually come to an end due to internal party pressures. “Her own party might exercise some discipline here in that Mitt Romney doesn’t get away with what she gets away with and there are Republicans who aren’t enthused about her remaining the main person that the media focuses on.  So, intraparty discipline might force her to be a more serious person if not intraparty competition from other likely candidates,” Carlson said. You can watch our entire interview with Margaret Carlson HERE: