While FedEx founder and chairman, Fred Smith, generally supported the direction President-elect Donald Trump is taking with his pledges to improve the nation\u2019s infrastructure and reduce the national debt, he was deeply critical of Trump\u2019s repeated statements against global trade during his campaign and called for the new President to drop his protectionist rhetoric.
\nDuring a mid-December speech at a forum sponsored by the National Council on Competitiveness (NCCF), Smith called for the industry to convince the President-elect to adopt a pro-trade stance and to reduce his tendency to talk about building trade barriers to isolate the United States from the rest of the world.
\n\u201cHistory shows that people have always wanted to travel and trade,\u201d Smith told the audience. \u201cToday that desire is stronger than ever. With our constantly growing digital economy, almost anyone with a mobile phone can reach new markets in nanoseconds, funneling tremendous digital connectivity into more buying power, more economic growth, and a higher standard of living.\u201d
\nBased on the 40-year history of FedEx, and for much of the 20th century, Smith said that \u201ccentrally planned, government-directed economies don\u2019t work. They can\u2019t sustain growth; they can\u2019t respond quickly to changing market conditions. They innovate more slowly and don\u2019t attract much foreign investment.\u201d
\nFedEx, he said, is at \u201cthe nexus of global trade,\u201d moving 12 million shipments per day to 220 countries and territories. \u201cWe see the value of trade every day,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, the largest customs clearance port of entry in the U.S. is the Memphis airport, where our FedEx Superhub is located.\u201d
\nCiting several cases in Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina \u2014 and also some legislation from the U.S., such as the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act \u2014 Smith said \u201cprotectionism doesn\u2019t work,\u201d and that \u201chistory has shown repeatedly that free-market economies create human opportunity.\u201d
\nHe also said the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), the post-war treaty that sought to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers, \u201cwas a decisive factor in the post-war growth of the United States, which became the richest country in the world. U.S. trade policy was also a major factor in the recovery of Japan, Germany and other devastated countries.\u201d
\nSmith said that Trump\u2019s vilification of other trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is wrong-headed, as they help bind the economies of the member parties together into symbiotic relationships. Rather than pull out of these agreements, he said, the Trump administration should focus on tweaking aspects to improve them in light of today\u2019s e-commerce-driven economy.
\n\u201cTrade has made America great, and expanding trade has been a bi-partisan pursuit for over 80 years,\u201d Smith concluded. \u201cThe failure to continue to do so would be a severe mistake with enormous consequences for America and the world.\u201d
\nTo see the entirety of Smith\u2019s speech to the NCCF, please see the story here, at our sister publication, Cargo Facts.
\nSource: aircargoworld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While FedEx founder and chairman, Fred Smith, generally supported the direction President-elect Donald Trump is taking with his pledges to improve the nation\u2019s infrastructure and reduce the national debt, he was deeply critical of Trump\u2019s repeated statements against global trade during his campaign and called for the new President to drop his protectionist rhetoric. During[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2073,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-2072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-airport-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/kr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}