Obama travels to India to talk about the economy and jobs
TEXT OF STORY
STEVE CHIOTAKIS: President Obama travels to India today on a three-day mission to talk about the economy and jobs. It’s the first Asian stop on a ten-day, four-nation tour.
From New Delhi, Raymond Thibodeaux reports.
RAYMOND THIBODEAUX: President Obama is set to arrive in India’s commercial capital of Mumbai with a huge entourage of leaders from American corporations, including GE and Boeing. Their mission: to pry open India’s markets to more U.S. businesses in defense, banking, retail and agriculture, and in the process create more jobs back home.
The president is hoping to avoid the “O” word — outsourcing. It’s a hot-button issue here after Obama pushed to end tax breaks to companies that ship American jobs overseas. Indians also bristled when the U.S. nearly doubled the fees for visas that allow thousands of Indians to work in the U.S.
Indian foreign secretary Narupama Rao points out that the flow of jobs goes both ways.
NARUPAMA RAO: Thousands of jobs have been created by our acquisitions in the United States. That is something we would like to convey to President Obama and his delegation.
Still, analysts say that might not be enough to convince the more than 13 million American workers without jobs that opening up U.S. trade with India might help the U.S. economic recovery.
In New Delhi, I’m Raymond Thibodeaux for Marketplace.
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