Almost 1 in every 6 manufactured products coming off the assembly line goes to a foreign customer. Exports support 1 in every 5 manufacturing jobs and about 1 in 10 private sector jobs. 3M exports a wide range of consumer and industrial products. Exports directly support 8,000 jobs, over 20 percent of our total U.S. employment. But it's not just large corporations like 3M that benefit from exports.
Smaller companies do as well.
My NAM colleague Bill Weiller, the president of Purafil, will tell you how important exports are for his company of 70 employees. Leveling the Playing Field Looking out across the globe today, 3M and other U.S. manufacturers do not see a level playing field for trade. Unlike many foreign markets, the U.S. market is already open to trade and investment. The weighted average U.S. tariff on imported goods is only about 2 percent. While tariffs in other industrial countries have fallen sharply, they are still high in emerging markets and newly-industrialized countries.