Securing a trade deal with Europe is vital for the Arkansas economy, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said at a Little Rock Rotary Club meeting Tuesday.
The governor returned from a trade mission to France and Germany earlier this month. Before going on the trip, he said he would have 17 formal meetings with business leaders and another 15 to 20 casual meetings in the two countries.
"We are a global enterprise here in Arkansas, in every respect," he said. "We need to get that trade promotion authority passed so we can continue to export from the United States without being penalized by a tariff."
Hutchinson said that President Barack Obama should be granted fast-track authority by the U.S. Congress, which would allow the final trade deal to be approved by Congress in an up-or-down vote. Legislators wouldn't be able to amend the agreement.
A meeting with a German automotive company helped convince the governor that a free trade agreement with Europe would be in the best interest of Arkansas. The company had recently invested in Mexico, he said.
He didn't name the company, but BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are all German companies that have a presence in the United States and Mexico.
Auto companies tend to build where they sell, according to a U.S. Department of Commerce report. That's why German automakers produce a range of sport utility vehicles in the United States aimed at American customers.
The trend has meant increased foreign investment in the United States, and with demand for SUVs growing in Europe, the potential market is expanding. But, Hutchinson said, Mexico -- which already has a free trade agreement with Europe and the United States -- is starting to win out.
The European Union slaps a 10 percent tariff on American-made cars but doesn't place a similar tariff on Made-in-Mexico automobiles, he said.
The tariff could be eliminated if there's a free trade agreement with the European Union, shifting foreign investment back toward the United States from Mexico.
"I hope that we can be successful in giving that trade promotion authority to the president," Hutchinson said. "It will create jobs in Arkansas, and I support it."
The trade mission highlighted the importance of forging relationships with foreign companies, the governor said.
During a question-and-answer session at the end of the meeting, Hutchinson talked about the Charleston, S.C., killings and "domestic terrorism."
He said he helped prosecute the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), a "paramilitary, white supremacist group" in northern Arkansas, in the 1980s.
"I made the observation then that this is not something we're going to be able to fix in the '80s," he said. "The issue of racial tolerance, the issue of diminishing the influence of these type of groups has to be one fought by every generation."
Hutchinson attended a Bethel AME prayer vigil in North Little Rock on Sunday night that was organized after Wednesday's massacre. At the Tuesday meeting, he praised Charleston residents for reopening their church days after nine were killed there.
"I think they did it because they had communication, and they had a sense of community before it happened," he said. "And I'd like to think we have that same sense of community here in Arkansas -- that we talk to each other, we care about each other and we have the kind of relationships to weather storms of tragedy, but those have to be built and sustained in advance of that tragedy. That's what I saw here in Arkansas last Sunday night."
After his speech, Hutchinson talked with reporters about his decision to end the state's relationship with PARCC -- a multistate student testing consortium that produced online math and literacy tests for more than 200,000 students this past year.
The move came after the Arkansas Board of Education voted to continue using the test -- rejecting a recommendation from Hutchinson to adopt ACT tests.
The gubernatorial directive leaves wide open the question of what tests will be administered to Arkansas students in the 2015-16 school year to comply with a federal law requiring states to test students in math and literacy in third grade through high school.
"There's still the issue of testing," Hutchinson said. "I want to work with the state board of education [which] will ultimately make the call on what type of test we're going to have next year and beyond. I've made the case clear we need to move away from PARCC testing."
Metro on 06/24/2015