NAM's John Engler had a good piece in Industry Week on trade and energy, a quick summary:

...The fact is, FTAs are enabling American manufacturers to more effectively compete in markets abroad. The manufacturing trade deficit with our FTA partners has narrowed from $41 billion in 2002 to less than $27 billion in 2007, and has switched to an outright surplus of half a billion dollars through the first five months of 2008.

It is not our country's trade policies, but energy imports that are the primary cause of the rising trade deficit. Simply put, our country does not produce enough energy to meet the demands of our economy… Since the first quarter of 2002, 93% of the increase in the trade deficit has been in petroleum products…

By the first quarter of 2008, petroleum products accounted for more than half (55%) of the deficit. If you factor out petroleum, the U.S. trade deficit has narrowed by 44% since the end of 2004 as a share of GDP and now stands at its lowest level since 1999.

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