Commentary

Foreign Companies Can Create Jobs Here Too

From the WSJ:

At the ground-breaking ceremony for a new factory in Michigan this month, President Barack Obama touted the fact that 300 people will soon be employed building lithium-ion car batteries there. “These are jobs in the industries of the future,” Mr. Obama said at the Compact Power Inc. plant. “You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America.”

Nowhere in his remarks did the president mention that Compact Power is a subsidiary of LG Chem Limited, a multinational firm headquartered in South Korea. But it is important for the administration to acknowledge explicitly that it can promote job creation by supporting investment in the U.S. by foreign companies like LG Chem. Such support should begin with free trade agreements (the U.S.-South Korean agreement remains stalled in Congress), but extend far beyond.

See here for the full piece.