This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, April 30, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President's National Export Initiative aims to double exports in the coming years,

and there's plenty of low-hanging fruit that would boost exports.

So why hasn't the administration moved forward to free up trade?

Dan Griswold, Director of the Cato Institute Center for Trade Policy Policy Studies offers the president a free market

five-year plan for boosting exports.

We're in a moment right now when the economy is not doing particularly well.

The US dollar is rising against the euro and other currencies,

which doesn't speak well for exports.

Yes, yeah, the Obama administration, one, they're dealing with high unemployment and

we're coming out of a recession, but also they've been accused of not having a trade policy,

which there's a lot of truth to that.

The president's, it's a politically difficult issue for him.

So in his State of the Union address,

he unveiled the National Export Initiative, where the President committed his

administration to promote a doubling of U.S. exports over the next five years.

And he claims it will create two million jobs and I can't question that figure. But it was a bold promise and it's going to be difficult to deliver and some of the reasons it's going to be

difficult are of the administration's own making. Exports are good. I'm all for

exports and they do help create good paying jobs. But over the last 30 years we have in

order to double exports over five years they have to grow at about 15% per year.

We've achieved that growth rate in exactly one year in the last 30 years,

...