Editorial: Looking forward on state’s trade in Trump era

Work at the South Terminal at the Port of Everett to drive steel piles into the seabed strengthens a section of the terminal to handle larger roll-on/roll-off cargo in January, 2014. The work was part of a $3.8 million upgrade by the Port of Everett. (Mark Mulligan/Herald file photo)

Work at the South Terminal at the Port of Everett to drive steel piles into the seabed strengthens a section of the terminal to handle larger roll-on/roll-off cargo in January, 2014. The work was part of a $3.8 million upgrade by the Port of Everett. (Mark Mulligan/Herald file photo)

By The Herald Editorial Board

The new head of the Washington Council on International Trade, the nonprofit agency that advocates for the state’s businesses and their employees who rely on healthy trade ties, started in her new job in mid-December at an unsettling time.

Then-President-elect Trump had promised to scuttle not only the Trans-Pacific Partnership but also NAFTA and the Export-Import Bank during his campaign. The trade pacts and the export lender are viewed as crucial to manufacturers, agricultural producers and others in the state, raising concerns for WCIT’s new president, Lori Otto Punke, who before leading the agency participated on its board and held senior public affairs positions at Microsoft and Starbucks.

“Even before last summer, we knew this was going to be a challenge,” Otto Punke said earlier this week during a meeting with The Herald Editorial Board.

President Trump did pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that last year had completed negotiations among 11 other Pacific Rim nations. But since taking office, Trump has moderated his stance on the Export-Import Bank and NAFTA. Trump announced he would seek to keep Ex-Im open and his since nominated a chairman and a board member to fill vacancies. Likewise, he said he would seek to renegotiate, and not scuttle, NAFTA.

On both, Otto Punke said she sees opportunities that will benefit the state and its employers, though challenges remain.

The Export-Import Bank is key to trade in Washington state and the nation. In operation for 83 years, the bank facilitates loans, loan guarantees and insurance that promotes exports to other countries from small, medium and large businesses in the United States. Boeing and the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodinville are among the better known companies benefiting from the bank’s services, but a number of small- and medium-sized business in Snohomish County have relied on the Ex-Im Bank’s assistance. The bank is self-supporting, operating off the interest it charges and regularly returning a profit to the U.S. Treasury, more than $3.4 billion since 2005.

After a contentious battle, the state’s congressional delegation helped win reauthorization of the bank in 2015, but conservatives in Congress have since hamstrung its operations by refusing to confirm nominees to its board. Without a full board, the bank cannot make loans of more than $10 million, which has sent companies, including Boeing, elsewhere to find financing for their customers. The bank, The New York Times reported in May, authorized only $5 billion in financing last year, about a quarter of what it was authorized to lend in 2014.

Trump has nominated two former Republican congressmen: Scott Garrett of New Jersey as president and chairman, and Spencer Bachus of Alabama as a board member. Both have yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

But as ardent as their support for the Ex-Im Bank has been, the state’s Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have objected specifically to Garrett, because while in the House he was one of the leading voices seeking to close the bank.

“At best, this was an uninformed choice. I will continue to push for someone who actually believes in the agency’s mission and is committed to helping Washington state workers and businesses succeed,” Murray said in a statement released Wednesday.

A modernized NAFTA also could have benefits for Washington businesses, Otto Punke said.

In the past 20 years, Washington’s exports to Canada have increased by 200 percent and to Mexico by 700 percent, WCIT figures show, trade that supports about 330,000 jobs in the state.

Renegotiating NAFTA, Otto Punke said, could open access for Washington dairies to Canadian markets and also allow the sale of Washington wines in British Columbia stores. WCIT also wants to see rules updated to free up exchange of digital information; streamlining of regulations; language to keep tariffs from increasing; and updates to the limits at which online sales are taxed (currently Canada can levy taxes on purchases over $20, and Mexico, over $50.)

Talks also could help strengthen enforcement of provisions, Otto Punke said, as had been outlined in the TPP. Trump appears intent on ensuring good, enforceable deals for the nation. Toward better enforcement, Sen. Cantwell last year won approval for a Trade Enforcement Trust Fund, $15 million annually, to assist the U.S. Trade Representative’s office resolve trade disputes before the World Trade Organization.

While seeing the U.S. walk away from the TPP was a disappointment, the WCIT chief said, it hasn’t diminished Washington state’s stature among those nations or with China, earlier demonstrated by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Everett and Washington state in 2015 and a similar visit in 1979 by then-Vice Premiere Deng Xiaoping.

Why is all this important?

Washington state’s economy is heavily reliant on trade. The state Department of Commerce reports that 1 in 3 jobs in Washington are related to exports, and the state is the fourth largest exporter in the nation, shipping nearly $80 billion in goods worldwide in 2016. Among the leading exports are apples, timber, wine, software, robotics and aircraft and aerospace components — much of it built here in Everett and Snohomish County, of course.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

A Volunteers of America Western Washington crisis counselor talks with somebody on the phone Thursday, July 28, 2022, in at the VOA Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Dire results will follow end of LGBTQ+ crisis line

The Trump administration will end funding for a 988 line that serves youths in the LGBTQ+ community.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, July 7

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Comment: Supreme Court’s majority is picking its battles

If a constitutional crisis with Trump must happen, the chief justice wants it on his terms.

Saunders: Combs’ mixed verdict shows perils of over-charging

Granted, the hip-hop mogul is a dirtbag, but prosecutors reached too far to send him to prison.

Comment: RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel turns misinformation into policy

The new CDC panel’s railroading of a decision to pull a flu vaccine foreshadows future unsound decisions.

FILE — The journalist Bill Moyers previews an upcoming broadcast with staffers in New York, in March 2001. Moyers, who served as chief spokesman for President Lyndon Johnson during the American military buildup in Vietnam and then went on to a long and celebrated career as a broadcast journalist, returning repeatedly to the subject of the corruption of American democracy by money and power, died in Manhattan on June 26, 2025. He was 91. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)
Comment: Bill Moyers and the power of journalism

His reporting and interviews strengthened democracy by connecting Americans to ideas and each other.

Brooks: AI can’t help students learn to think; it thinks for them

A new study shows deeper learning for those who wrote essays unassisted by large language models.

toon
Editorial: Using discourse to get to common ground

A Building Bridges panel discussion heard from lawmakers and students on disagreeing agreeably.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, June 27, 2025. The sweeping measure Senate Republican leaders hope to push through has many unpopular elements that they despise. But they face a political reckoning on taxes and the scorn of the president if they fail to pass it. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times)
Editorial: GOP should heed all-caps message on tax policy bill

Trading cuts to Medicaid and more for tax cuts for the wealthy may have consequences for Republicans.

Alaina Livingston, a 4th grade teacher at Silver Furs Elementary, receives her Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic for Everett School District teachers and staff at Evergreen Middle School on Saturday, March 6, 2021 in Everett, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: RFK Jr., CDC panel pose threat to vaccine access

Pharmacies following newly changed CDC guidelines may restrict access to vaccines for some patients.

Do we have to fix Congress to get them to act on Social Security?

Thanks to The Herald Editorial Board for weighing in (probably not for… Continue reading

Comment: Keep county’s public lands in the public’s hands

Now pulled from consideration, the potential sale threatened the county’s resources and environment.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.