Whirlpool working to keep trade fair, open

By Jeff M. Fettig

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As a CEO of an American company, I hear too often that we used to be a country of people who built things. Whirlpool Corporation is still a company that builds things. We are proud of our heritage and prouder still of our products and our American manufacturing presence.

We continue to innovate, to create and sell products valued by our consumers. That's how we became the largest manufacturer of home appliances in the world.

We welcome competition, and strongly support passage of the Colombia, Korea and Panama free trade agreements. Each of these will reinforce the U.S. laws and international agreements regarding fair trade that global companies are required to abide by. Rules matter. Rules provide the framework to assure fairness and openness to all, inviting the pioneering spirit of entrepreneurism that made this country great.

To protect the integrity of the global trading system that has enabled our company and so many others to succeed, Whirlpool Corporation last week filed petitions asking the U.S. government to investigate Samsung and LG for dumping refrigerators in the United States and for using unfair subsidies.

Improper behavior aimed at undercutting competitors to grab market share is a violation of our global trading rules. It harms U.S. workers and reduces choices for U.S. consumers. If left unchecked, these anticompetitive practices stymie the ability of U.S. manufacturers to invest in innovative new products, and they erode U.S. jobs, including putting at risk many of the more than 23,000 U.S. jobs held by Whirlpool employees, including 2,000 in Iowa.

I believe U.S. manufacturing can and will continue to successfully compete in the global marketplace. That's why we are investing more than $1 billion over four years in our U.S. facilities that house more manufacturing workers than all of our major competitors combined. The investments we are making in innovation will allow Whirlpool to continue to compete and win against the best companies in the world with products consumers want, built in our American plants by American workers.

More than 80 percent of the products we sell in the United States are built here, far more than any of our competitors, some of whom have no U.S. manufacturing.

Whirlpool Corporation is an active member of the communities in which we have plants, in small towns in Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Those communities benefit even more from the economic activity that manufacturing generates.

Whirlpool also exports on average 12 percent of our U.S.-built goods to customers around the globe and is a proud contributor to helping meet the Obama administration's goal of doubling exports by 2014. As President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, “the more we export, the more jobs we create here at home.”

In order to protect the integrity of the global trading system that has created so much prosperity in the United States and around the world, companies must act when the rules of open and fair trade are violated.

The action Whirlpool Corporation took this week is a stand for our industry and our employees who have the know-how and drive to lead the appliance industry.

And for the same reasons, we continue our steadfast support for expanding the global trading system, designed to protect the consumer through an open and free trading system.

Rigorous enforcement of the rules should give policymakers and all Americans even greater confidence to support open and fair trade. Open trade is the best assurance that companies like Whirlpool Corporation and others who abide by the rules can look to for another century of creating commerce, employing great workers and making outstanding products.

Jeff M. Fettig is chairman and CEO for Whirlpool Corporation, based in Benton Harbor, Mich. Comments: facts@whirl

pool.com