The U.S. trade deficit is on course to top $815 billion. In 2005, the United States imported $717 billion more in goods than it exported, for a trade deficit of more than $2.09 billion a day. The rising deficit has cost more than 3 million actual and potential U.S. jobs since 1994.

On July 12, 2006, the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Business and Industry Council co-sponsored a bipartisan national conference, Trade Summit 2006: Crisis and Opportunity. Nationally recognized leaders from business, union and agriculture groups, prominent academic experts and members of Congress, addressed America’s massive and dangerous trade deficit.

• Read the AFL-CIO Executive Council statement Time for Bold Action on Trade (PDF).
• Read remarks by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard L. Trumka at the trade summit (PDF).
• Read a statement made by Douglas S. Bartlett, chairman of Bartlett Manufacturing Co., at the trade summit.
• Read a paper from the Levy Economics Institute on the dangers of the U.S. trade deficit.
• Read an article from the Economic Policy Institute on the effect of the trade deficit on manufacturing job loss.
• Read a Fortune magazine article by Warren Buffet about fixing the trade deficit.
• Read what business leaders and major economists say about the trade deficit (PDF).
• Read what America's politicians say about the trade deficit (PDF).

Background: The Trade Deficit

• Exporting America—get the facts.
• Download a fact sheet on the trade deficit (PDF).
• Download a fact sheet on trade and manufacturing jobs (PDF).
• Find out which companies are sending jobs overseas with Working America’s Job Tracker.
• Read a statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on the trade policies that led to the current trade deficit.
• Read about President George W. Bush’s record on shipping jobs overseas (PDF).