Business deals worth billions of dollars made with India last November and with China this week has helped increase American exports, besides creating thousands of jobs in the country, US President Barack Obama said today.
"If we're serious about fighting for American jobs and American businesses, one of the most important things we can do is open up more markets to American goods around the world," Obama said in his weekly address to the nation.
"That's why I met with China's President Hu Jintao at the White House this past week.
We're now exporting more than $100 billion a year to China in goods and services," he said, adding that as a result of deals the US we’ll be increasing its exports to China by more than $45 billion, and China's investments in America by several billion dollars.
Most important, these deals will support some 235,000 American jobs.
And that includes a lot of manufacturing jobs, he added.
"That goal is why I fought so hard to negotiate a new and better trade deal with South Korea – a deal with unprecedented support from business and labour – that will support more than 70,000 American jobs.
And that's why I travelled to India last fall to help pave the way for $10 billion in new deals for American businesses and more than 50,000 new American jobs," Obama said.
Referring to his visit to a GE plant in Schenectady, New York, he said: "This plant is manufacturing steam turbines and generators for a big project in India that resulted from a deal we announced around that trip – a project that's helping support more than 1,200 manufacturing jobs and more than 400 engineering jobs in Schenectady.
Good jobs at good wages, producing American products for the world."
At the same time, GE has also been investing in innovation, building a clean energy centre, an advanced battery manufacturing plant, and other state-of-the-art facilities in Schenectady that are resulting in hundreds of new American jobs and contributing to America's global economic leadership, he noted.