How Texas depends on world markets
Editor’s Note: The following is from the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Would Expand Market Access
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) offers tremendous opportunities for U.S. exporters. TPP members comprise a population of roughly 800 million and these dynamic economies generate nearly 40 percent of global GDP. The United States already has strong trade and investment ties to this region; we exported $697.8 billion in goods to all TPP markets in 2013, or about 44 percent of total U.S. exports, and are seeking through TPP to further deepen our economic relations.
Texas Depends on World Markets
Texas’s goods exports in 2013 totaled $279.7 billion. Texas exported $141 billion annually in goods to all TPP markets (2011-2013 average). Texas’s goods exports to all TPP markets increased by 15 percent from 2011 to 2013. During this period, 53 percent of Texas’s total goods exports went to the TPP region. The top three product categories exported to TPP-member economies in 2013 were computer and electronic products, petroleum and coal products, and chemical manufactures.
Goods Exports Support Jobs for Texas Workers: Jobs supported by Texas’s goods exports were about 786,000 in 2011 (latest available data) according to a USTR estimate based on U.S. Department of Commerce data. In 2011 (latest available data), over one-quarter (26.1 percent) of all manufacturing workers in Texas depended on exports for their jobs. Additional jobs also are supported by Texas’s exports of services, although there are no available data on this.
Goods Exports Sustain Thousands of Texas Businesses:A total of 40,737 companies exported goods from Texas locations in 2012 (latest available data). Of those, 37,921 (93.1 percent) were small- and medium-sized enterprises, with fewer than 500 employees.
Texas Small and Medium-Sized Firms Will Benefit From Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA Provisions
Small- and medium-sized firms generated nearly one-third or 30.6 percent of Texas’s total exports of merchandise in 2012 (latest available data). Small- and medium-sized firms benefit from the tariff-elimination provisions of free trade agreements, as well as many of the other commitments in the agreement. Trade facilitation, for example, is vital to small- and medium-sized firms, as is enforcement of their intellectual property rights, streamlining of regulatory issues, and other commitments.
Note: The Asia Pacific Region is defined as APEC countries; TPP partner countries are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce; U.S.TradeRepresentative.
