Free Republic

California's foreign trade offices--taxpayer-funded enterprises disbanded three years ago amid scandal and budget woes--are staging a comeback despite lingering questions about their usefulness. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and some legislators are once again trumpeting the value of trade promotion for the sixth-largest economy in the world. In recent months, the governor has established an undersecretary for international trade, while lawmakers have proposed resurrecting outposts in Seoul, South Korea, and Johannesburg, South Africa. In coming weeks, the Legislature is expected to take up bills that call for developing a comprehensive trade strategy and moving the state back into the business of operating...

Creating overseas offices supposedly devoted to improving California's international trade was a popular political exercise in the 1980s and 1990s. There was no objective rationale for the program, nor any rhyme nor reason to where the offices were located. Governors and legislators acted on political whim, driven more by local factors or Capitol politics than a hard-nosed investment-vs.-return equation. Finally, the entire program collapsed of its own absurd weight. Journalistic investigations and official audits established that the trade offices were less than useless, with their directors - political appointees all - spending most of their time dreaming up phantom accomplishments....

<p>California's dozen foreign trade offices were already in jeopardy this spring before press reports in late May brought the first whiff of scandal. With the budget axe slashing deeply into state spending on education, public safety, health care and a host of programs targeting the state's most vulnerable citizens, the betting around the state Capitol was that the Davis administration would be lucky to secure money for three of the overseas outposts.</p>

<p>The directors of California's 12 foreign-trade offices should face perjury charges if they continue to produce false or misleading accounts to the Legislature of how they brokered businesses deals, key lawmakers said Sunday.</p> <p>The reform call is in response to an Orange County Register investigation into the trade offices - located around the world to increase exports and investment to California - that found more than $40 million in false or overblown deals. In case after case, business owners said they were surprised the state included them in annual reports as "success stories'' when they did little or nothing to help them.</p>

<p>Overseas offices that cost millions to run, fail to generate commerce and often mislead lawmakers and the public about their performance are the state's ...</p> <p>SURPRISED: Mia Rose Palencar, who owns a cleaning-products business based in Orange, is baffled by the trade agency’s report that it helped her with a $40,000 export deal. “I’d love to know how they felt they helped me,” she says.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. SANTA ANA -- The state offices charged with boosting California exports overseas and luring foreign investment lied about at least $44 million in deals they claimed to have brokered, the Orange County Register reported Monday. Among other things, the trade office in South Africa falsely said it had brokered a $12,000 export deal for a Diamond Bar company; officials in the Mexico office lied about helping a Lodi sewage equipment firm to sell $150,000 worth of products and the Japanese office misstated its work on a $33,334 deal that supposedly helped...

<p>Pennsylvania has a friend in almost every corner of the world.</p> <p>Pennsylvania spends $2.6 million a year to run 15 foreign trade offices -- more than any other state -- representing the commonwealth from Australia to Singapore to the United Kingdom.</p>