Montana has 108,935 jobs because of international trade, and new World Trade Organization and free trade agreements since the early 1990s have helped position the state for more economic growth, according to new research from Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies.

Trade and American Jobs is the first study to count U.S. and state jobs that depend on exports and imports of both goods and services.
"Montana is reaping the benefits of international trade," said John J. Castellani, President of Business Roundtable. "The study suggests that trade is part of the reason Montana has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation."

In 2005, Montana companies and their employees sold their products to 111 foreign countries. Montana also recently joined Virginia as the fastest- growing exporter to Singapore since the U.S.-Singapore trade agreement was signed in 2002, according to the Progressive Policy Institute. Statewide trade to Singapore has grown from $5 to $32 million, with heavy machinery manufactured in Montana leading the way.

Much of this success can be linked to new trade agreements supported by Republicans and Democrats in Washington, including Senator Max Baucus, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee which oversees U.S. trade negotiations. Senator Baucus is a longtime advocate of using trade agreements to get foreign countries to remove barriers to the sale of U.S. manufactured goods, agricultural products and services.

The study reports good news for the rest of the country as well. Nationwide, more than 31 million jobs - nearly one in five - are tied to global trade.

"This report definitively debunks the myth that trade has a net negative impact on U.S. employment and wages," said Laura M. Baughman, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide and co-author of the study. "Montana proves that more trade equals more jobs."

The researchers created a model that looked at the trade picture for goods and services over the last decade. In 1992, a year prior to the implementation of a number of trade agreements, net trade-related jobs only totaled approximately 14 million, roughly one in ten U.S. workers. In Montana, 18.2 percent of jobs are now supported by trade, up from 11.3 percent in 1992.

"The trend is clear," Baughman said, "trade liberalization supports good jobs and higher paychecks for Americans working in the global economy."

Trade and American Jobs is a unique analysis. Past estimates of trade- related employment either vastly underestimated the number of U.S. jobs tied to trade, or suffered from serious estimation flaws that presented biased results. This study represents the first comprehensive look at total U.S. trade, employing a methodology that accounts for trade gains and losses, and that covers services and goods.