The United States must resist the urge to retreat from the world and close its markets and borders in an effort to shield workers and industries, Chamber officials said during a December 16 briefing.

"There is a triple witches' brew facing the incoming administration," said Lieutenant General (Ret.) Daniel W. Christman, the U.S. Chamber's senior vice president for international affairs. "The current financial situation, a decline in public support for trade, and the challenge of building a bipartisan consensus in Congress on trade all increase the trend towards isolationism." However, Christman warned that the U.S. cannot afford to "raise the drawbridge," particularly when export growth has been "one of the few bright spots in the economy" this past year.

Christman and John Murphy, vice president for international affairs, laid out the Chamber's 2009 international agenda and policy recommendations for President-elect Barack Obama and the 111th Congress. The Chamber's 14-point "International Engagement" plan includes  recommendations to double the $200 million appropriated for export assistance to small- and medium-size companies, modernize trade preference programs with developing countries, expand federal assistance to workers displaced by trade, renew the president's trade promotion authority, and approve pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

Read the recommendations.