Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch (GTW) has issued its latest trade "study," and as so often before, it takes on the Chamber. However, while everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, no one is entitled to their own statistics.

In one prominent claim, the report asserts that “as of 2009, the United States had a $54 billion trade deficit in goods, excluding oil, with the bloc of 17 U.S. FTA partners.”

That’s not so -- but don’t take our word for it. A recent U.S. Department of Commerce Export Fact Sheet states, “With exports exceeding imports, the U.S. has a trade surplus in manufactured goods with its FTA partners. In just the first two months of 2010, the trade surplus in manufactured goods with our trade partners totaled $3.0 billion.”

America’s trade surplus in manufactured goods with its FTA partners emerged several years ago and continues today, as the Commerce Department has pointed out repeatedly.

The NAM’s Frank Vargo, who for years oversaw the research division at the U.S. Department of Commerce, explains what’s going on: "GTW makes a severe miscalculation in their trade deficit calculation by subtracting re-exports from the export side of the trade balance and neglecting to subtract them from the import side. This miscalculation drastically overstates the U.S. manufactured goods trade deficit by $114 billion in 2009. According to the Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division and the International Trade Administration’s trade analysis office this method used by GTW is not a legitimate way to calculate the trade deficit."

GTW further asserts that “between 1998 and 2008, U.S. goods exports to FTA partner countries grew by an annual average rate of only 3.0 percent.”

However, a July 2009 GAO report entitled “Four Free Trade Agreements GAO Reviewed Have Resulted in Commercial Benefits, but Challenges on Labor and Environment Remain” found that U.S. exports to Jordan, Morocco, Chile, and Singapore rose by 167%, 190%, 365%, and 72%, respectively, from the year prior to FTA implementation through 2008. (They were implemented in 2001, 2005, 2003, and 2003, respectively.)

A U.S. Department of Commerce report entitled “Top U.S. Export Markets: Free Trade Agreement and Country Fact Sheets 2009” finds that U.S. exports have grown rapidly after implementation of an FTA. For instance, U.S. exports to Australia grew by 59% from 2004-2008, and U.S. exports to Central America and the Dominican Republic grew by 50% between 2005 and 2008. It also confirms the GAO numbers.

Again, don’t take our word for it. These are official statistics.

I could go on, but the point is clear. Public Citizen is again engaging in lies, damned lies, and invented statistics.