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Asserting that economic competition from India and China was giving rise to some uncertainty among Americans, President George W Bush has cautioned his countrymen against turning protectionist and said it was important the US not only opened up markets for its products but also levelled the playing field.
For the third time in four days -- starting with his State of the Union address on Tuesday -- Bush touched on this theme of 'competition,' this time in New Mexico.
The President did not pass up the opportunity to point to the latest statistics of the US Labor Department which talked about an improved economy by way of jobs added to the market and unemployment hitting the lowest levels over the last four years.
"But what's interesting about the numbers is that beneath that there's a certain amount of uncertainty amongst some in America. Yes, we've got a lot of competition, and people begin to see an emerging China, and India, and that makes people uncertain," Bush said.
"It creates certain anxiety when they hear the stories about India and China beginning to grow robustly, or jobs going to India and China, or India and China consuming a lot of natural resources," he said.
Bush cautioned the American people against turning inward or protectionist saying that these were not prescriptions for competition, a theme that his top aides have been hammering away for the last two days.
". . . there's a lot of turnover in the job market. People are changing jobs, and that creates uncertainty. And during times of uncertainty, we're faced with certain choices. And there's a tendency throughout our history, our economic history and foreign policy history, to withdraw.
"Times of uncertainty sometimes encourage folks to say, well, why do we need to compete? Why don't we just come within ourselves? Why don't we protect ourselves off from the world? Why do we need to be trying to spread freedom when world is a dangerous place? Why don't we just come home?" Bush asked.
He also touched on two topics, the first of which he has devoted quite a bit of attention in the last few days -- the imperative of American youngsters to take up science and math.
". . . when it comes to competition, the world is going to be competitive whether we're in the mix, or not. For example, this competitive world is going to demand a job skill set that emphasises math and science, which we'll talk about here in a second. And if our kids don't have the talents necessary to compete, those jobs won't go away, they'll just go to another country," Bush said.
Secondly, the President pointed out that the role of the government is not only to open up markets but also to insist on a level-playing field.
". . . the role of the government is to not only open up markets for our products, but at the same time, say to our competitors and/or other markets, treat us the way we treat you. That's all we ask. In other words, level the playing field. It is very important if this country is to remain competitive that we do not lose our nerve, that we open up markets for our products, that we level the playing field -- because nobody can out-compete us when the rules are fair," Bush told his audience.