United States President Barack Obama had gained some notoriety for his administration’s sometimes strident views on jobs moving from “Buffalo to Bangalore.” Now the President’s oratory has given birth to a new and more positive sound bite in the realm of strategic geography: “Samalkot to Schenectady”
At a speech in Schenectady, New York, this week Mr. Obama mentioned the small Andhra Pradesh town and industrial complex venue no fewer than five times.
And unlike the references to American jobs getting “Bangalored,” a regular feature of the Obama speeches of 2010, the President struck an optimistic note on the role of U.S.-India commercial relations in spurring domestic job creation.
Speaking about his November 2010 visit to India at a plant of electric goods major General Electric Mr. Obama said, “Part of the reason I wanted to come to this plant is because this plant is what that trip was all about.”
He went on to explain that during that visit U.S. businesses were able to reach agreements on exporting over $10 billion in goods and services to India, and that was, according to him, expected to lead to 50,000 jobs created in the U.S.
Mr. Obama supplied some details of the Samalkot-GE deal in particular, noting that “As part of the deal we struck in India, GE is going sell advanced turbines -- the ones you guys make -- to generate power at a plant in Samalkot, India.”
He quipped, “Most of you hadn’t heard of Samalkot but now you need to know about it, because you’re going to be selling to Samalkot, India.”
“That new business halfway around the world is going to help support more than 1,200 manufacturing jobs and more than 400 engineering jobs right here in this community -- because of that sale,” he added, to loud applause.
More broadly this and other recent speeches by Obama administration officials appear to point to a renewed emphasis on U.S. exports and job creation, said to be a top policy priority for 2011. This was a point that Mr. Obama further underscored in his Schenectady speech, when he said, the Samalkot agreement was a “perfect example of why promoting exports is so important.”
“That is why I have set a goal of doubling American exports within five years. And we are on track to do it. We are already up 18 per cent and we are just going to keep on going, because we are going to sell more and more stuff all around the world,” Mr. Obama said.
Commenting further on the GE deal he added, “The deal in Samalkot means jobs in Schenectady. That’s how we accelerate growth. That’s how we create opportunities for our people.”
Yet competing internationally to sell goods, especially in countries such as China, was equally a major theme of the speech, and the President said, “The Chinese were selling a lot to us. Folks were selling a lot to us from all over the world. We have got to reverse that.”
He further said that in an ever-shrinking world, the U.S.’ success would be determined not only by what it built build in Schenectady, but also what it could sell in Shanghai. “For America to compete around the world, we need to export more goods around the world. That is where the customers are. It's that simple,” he said.
