The Brookings Institution's analysis shows rapid growth of export sales in 2010, the first year of economic recovery in the U.S. Those sales grew by 11-percent -- the fastest rate tracked since 1997 -- and out of the top 100 metro areas for U.S. export sales, seven were in Ohio.
The report says manufacturing drove much of the resurgence in exports, with 1 out of 4 of products and services being shipped to Canada and Mexico…trading partners within the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Andrew Duehrel is president of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. He says critics who claimed jobs would suffer because of NAFTA had it "absolutely wrong."
"We are in a global economy," says Duehrel. "I think everybody recognizes that -- and for anybody to say we shouldn't be in free trade...we should close our borders... we'd be shutting down our ability to market to the huge populations that exist beyond our borders."
But Harriet Applegate, executive secretary of the North Shore AFL-CIO, questions whether the job growth really is proof that NAFTA worked, noting the lack of specifics on the 600,000 jobs created.
"The real question is...do we have jobs that are sustainable jobs?" asks Applegate. "That sustain a family, that can allow the people who have those jobs participate in the economy by buying goods and continuing to have the economy grow? If they're low-wage, minimum wage jobs that's going to be a lot tougher, than if they're good jobs. But we don't know!"
The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor area's 2010 exports were valued at $12 billion, ranking it 21st on the Brookings Institution's top 100 metro areas for exports. Cinncinatti was 22nd, with its exports valued at over $11 billion.