Senators Call for Assistant Trade Representative for Small Business

Three senior Senators have called on Ron Kirk, the new United States Trade Representative, to appoint an Assistant for Small Business.

Senators Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the Chair and the Ranking Republican member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, along with Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Vice-Chairman of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, noted in a public letter to Kirk that although 240,000 U.S. small businesses export, this still represents less than 1 percent of the nation’s 26 million small businesses.

Other major trading nations, according to the Senators, do much better – engaging up to 15 percent of their small businesses in exporting, which has dramatically improved the balance of trade in those countries. The letter emphasizes that part of the solution to this problem is to have an Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Small Business involved in U.S. trade policy and trade negotiations at the highest levels, in order to lower barriers to small business participation in trade.

To read the letter and accompanying press release Click Here.