Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy

For the U.S. economy to thrive, its traded sectors, especially advanced manufacturing, must be globally competitive. Unfortunately, the opposite is true: the United States has seen virtually no growth in traded sector jobs since 1990 and has watched manufacturing output (when measured properly) fall by 11 percent over the past decade. The United States urgently needs to develop a comprehensive response. ITIF will host a Capitol Hill forum on September 20 presenting two reports offering key solutions.

The first report, by ITIF, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Competitiveness Woes Behind: A National Traded Sector Competitiveness Strategy lays out the “Top 50” recommendations Congress and the Administration should implement concerning the "4Ts" of technology, tax, trade, and talent to revitalize the United States’ manufacturing and broader traded sector competitiveness. The report also includes a comprehensive list of “4T” recommendations for U.S. states.

The second report, addressing advanced manufacturing, will be presented by Theresa Kontachek of Dow Chemical and Martin Schmidt of MIT, the report technical co-leads from the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), an advisory group representing industry, academia, and government. They will discuss key findings from the AMP Steering Committee’s July 2012 report Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced Manufacturing. This will be the first public discussion of the report’s policy recommendations, including enabling innovation, in part by establish a national network of manufacturing institutes; enhancing the talent pipeline; and improving the business climate to support advanced manufacturing.

The House Manufacturing Caucus and the Northeast-Midwest (NEMW) Congressional Coalition and its Manufacturing Task Force are coordinating hosts of this event.