Connect + Trade CEO Attends White House Briefing on TPP

Connect + Trade CEO Knud Berthelsen last week attended a White House Briefing on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) & The President’s Trade Agenda.

The event was chaired by Diane Doukas, Director of the White House Business Council, and included among others Fred Hochberg, President and Chairman of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Drew Quinn, Deputy Chief Negotiator for TPP, and Jason Miller, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

One of 54 attending business leaders from across the nation, Berthelsen shared information about how Connect + Trade’s American Export Assistance services help U.S. small businesses find and enter new international markets, and stressed the importance of increasing the number of U.S. small businesses that export goods and services, and the number of markets they do so to.

Berthelsen requested more data on small businesses knowledge about and interest in exporting their products and services, as well as more information about the hopefully soon to be agreed upon Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership with the European Union, and other potential new free-trade agreements.

If passed by Congress TPP will among other things reduce or eliminate 18,000 tariffs on American exports to the 11 other countries in the agreement and provide significant improvements in areas including Small Businesses, E-Commerce, and Intellectual Property.

Connect + Trade strongly urges everyone who cares about international trade, exports, and prosperity to do what they can to help the Trans-Pacific Partnership pass Congress!