Help for the Downtrodden Corporate Exporter

The Export-Import Bank
by Sheldon Richman
The Freeman
Nov. 15, 2010

The current occupant of the White House made quite a splash on his trip to India when he announced that 50,000 American jobs would be created thanks to $15 billion in U.S. export contracts. We’ll ignore Barack Obama’s grab at credit for these deals. Rupa Subramanya Dehejia of India Real Time notes, “The announcements were timed to coincide with the Presidential visit, but many of the deals were concluded well in advance. So no surprises there.”

What especially caught my eye about the trip was who accompanied Obama. The Khaleej Times reports:

Obama had also brought along with him the largest American business delegation ever to have accompanied a US president to a foreign country. A 200-plus star constellation of American business leaders and giants of the corporate world including Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, Jim McNerney of Boeing Co, David Cote of Honeywell International Inc’s and Indian American Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsico Inc.

That’s quite an entourage of heavy corporate hitters. But who was serving whom? Two things struck me as I read this: First, the corporate state is alive and well. And second, rumors of Obama being a Marxist bent on destroying capitalism are greatly exaggerated.

I wasn’t surprised to see Boeing on the list. Its association with the government has always been rather close. Boeing CEO James McNerney chairs the President’s Export Council, which is officially described as “the principal national advisory committee on international trade. The Council advises the President of government policies and programs that affect U.S. trade performance; promotes export expansion; and provides a forum for discussing and resolving trade-related problems among the business, industrial, agricultural, labor, and government sectors.” But I’m sure there’s no special pleading involved.

Incidentally, Air India has ordered 27 of the new 787 Dreamliners. Budget airline SpiceJet is buying 30 B737s. And the Indian Air Force wants ten C-17s.

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