In Georgia on Friday, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis discussed the importance of America’s efforts to out-build, out-innovate, and out-educate global competitors as he visited the University of Georgia's (UGA) program on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The University of Georgia is working with educators from kindergarten to college to make science and math programs more accessible. The program is dedicated to training teachers – especially at a grade school level – how to teach better. UGA is also developing animated technology, modeled on gaming technologies, to help teach biology to students. To invest in our future, President Obama has announced plans to train 100,000 STEM teachers and dedicate $100 million to support this goal.
On Thursday, Ambassador Marantis met in Atlanta with a group of local business and government officials to discuss the President's trade initiatives in Asia, especially the U.S.-Korea trade agreement and ongoing negotiations to complete the nine-country Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. In particular, he emphasized the job and export opportunities of the U.S.-Korea agreement in a keynote speech at the University of Georgia. Ambassador Marantis noted that congressional passage and implementation of the U.S.-Korea trade agreement will generate an additional $10-11 billion in annual goods exports and support an estimated 70,000 additional jobs.
