Two free-trade agreements currently being negotiated by the Obama administration will ensure a level playing field and benefit American workers, a senior White House official said April 23 at the Atlantic Council.
“If we do not do this … the world wouldn’t stay the same,” said Caroline Atkinson, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs at the White House.
Noting that 95 percent of the world’s consumers are outside the United States, she added: “They’re going to go on doing their consuming and trade without the rules and standards and norms that we have based on our values. But if we’re there helping to set the level playing field, then we are showing leadership.”
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Image: From left: Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe moderates a discussion on trade with Caroline Atkinson, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs at the White House; retired Marine Corps Gen James L. Jones, Jr., Chairman of the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security; Paula J. Dobriansky, a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Sciences and International Affairs; and Kim Beazley, Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, at the Atlantic Council on April 23. (Imagelink.com/denniskan)