Snow defends outsourcing of jobs
BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER
Associated Press
March 31WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary John Snow reignited the political argument over U.S. companies shipping jobs overseas Tuesday with comments that outsourcing was an integral part of a global trading system.
Snow's comments in economically hard-hit Ohio were published as President Bush was delivering a speech defending his free-trade policies in Wisconsin, a state that has lost 80,000 manufacturing jobs.
Democrat John Kerry is hoping to capitalize on Americans' concern about an economic recovery in which job growth has lagged badly and the country's manufacturers have suffered more than 3 million lost jobs since mid-2000.
Asked in a newspaper interview whether he thought outsourcing of jobs to other countries made the U.S. economy strong, Snow replied, ``It's one aspect of trade, and there can't be any doubt about the fact that trade makes . . . America strong.''
Bush told an audience in Appleton, Wis., Tuesday that he understood there was concern about ``jobs going overseas. . . . For some people looking for work, I understand that.''
But Bush said the way to confront the problem was to ''make sure America remains the best place in the world to do business'' and not to resort to ''economic isolationism'' by erecting barriers to the U.S. market.
The president has been using the phrase ''economic isolationism'' to attack Kerry's trade proposals including the Democrat's promise that he will reexamine all the country's trade agreements in his first 120 days as president to make sure they are fair to American workers.
Snow's remarks were similar to comments N. Gregory Mankiw, the president's chief economist, made last month in which he said the outsourcing of jobs would probably be a long-term benefit for the United States. Mankiw later apologized for comments he said were misinterpreted and made him appear to be insensitive to the issue of job losses.
Both Bush and Snow insisted that the administration's policy of pushing for free-trade agreements as a way to tear down barriers to American goods around the world was the best approach.
However, they are having to make that argument at a time when worries about outsourcing have grown along with the country's trade deficit, which last year hit an all-time high of $541.8 billion.
In his interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer, Snow said the answer to the problem of outsourcing, the movement of jobs to lower-waged countries, was to promote stronger economic growth in the United States.
''If we can keep the American economy strong and growing and expanding, we'll create lots of jobs. We always have,'' he said, seeking to address fears that many lost manufacturing jobs will never come back.
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