Bush advocates free trade

The way to meet workers' concerns about jobs going overseas is to prepare workers to acquire new skills for new jobs, open up markets abroad and make sure that America is the best place in the world to do business, US President George W Bush has said.

"The real challenge is to make sure other countries open up their markets," Bush told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Thursday.

"As opposed to saying, 'we are going to close our market and we don't care about you,' we ought to be saying the opposite: Our markets are open, and if you expect to trade with us, we want you to open yours."

"And so, when you hear about trade agreements, that is what we are doing. We are making sure the playing field is level. We have done a trade agreement with Singapore and Chile. We recently completed negotiations with Morocco, Australia and our friends in Central America."

The US, he said, cannot isolate itself from the world and expect to have a growing economy.

"Five per cent of the world's population is right here in America. It means 95 per cent of potential customers are elsewhere. If you are looking for work, you want the United States of America selling products and services from our country. It is good for job creation," he said.

"Presidents of both parties have agreed that trade is good for the American economy. For over 50 years that has been the case," he added.

Defending free trade, Bush has said that economic isolationism as a solution to job uncertainty is "dangerous" for the economy.

Without mentioning John Kerry his Democratic opponent in the Presidential elections, who has called companies, which outsource jobs abroad as 'Benedict Arnolds' (traitors to America), Bush speaking in New Hampshire said: "There is a temptation in Washington to say the solution to jobs uncertainty is to isolate America from the world.  It's called economic isolationism, ...we're too pessimistic...we don't want to compete."

He said, "One in five jobs in New Hampshire depends upon exports. In other words, it depends upon the ability to get our goods into somebody else's market."

Bush said that Presidents before him, both Republican and Democrat, had made the decision to make America's markets relatively open, compared to other countries, because it's good for the US consumers.

"When consumers have got more choices, and there's more competition, it helps satisfy your demand at a reasonable price."

Bush said that American workers must be trained for the jobs of the future, at entry level in schools, in community colleges and in colleges. That, he said, is what his administration is stressing and for which it is providing funds.