Obama: U.S. to strive to increase exports

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday his administration would strive to increase American exports to Asia-Pacific countries to create jobs back home.

"If we can increase our exports to Asia-Pacific nations by just 5 percent, we can increase the number of American jobs supported by these exports by hundreds of thousands," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address, recorded in Seoul, South Korea.

The president, who just wrapped up his eight-day trip to Asia for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, stressed the need to "place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce and sell to other nations -- exports that can help create new jobs at home and raise living standards throughout the world."

He noted the United States buys more goods from and does more trade with Asia than any other part of the world, supporting millions of American jobs.

While the trip yielded no major breakthroughs, the United States and China pledged to work together to resolve bilateral trade and investment disputes. China is the largest creditor to the United States, holding about $800 billion of U.S. Treasuries.

Obama also said the United States, China and Russia made progress in sending a "unified message to Iran and North Korea that they must live up to their international obligations and either forsake nuclear weapons or face the consequences."

And he touted clean-energy initiatives and said the United States and China had agreed to work toward a "successful outcome at the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen -- an outcome that leads to immediate action to reduce carbon pollution" at next month's summit.

World leaders at APEC backed off from a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by roughly half by 2050. Instead, the leaders approved a preliminary climate-change document that eliminated targets for emissions cuts.

Obama noted the Asia-Pacific includes some of the world's fastest-growing nations, adding, "There can be no solution to the challenge of climate change without the cooperation of the Asia-Pacific."