Eyewitness News Anchor Natalie Pasquarella Talks Local Jobs With President Obama

Just hours before President Barack Obama left for Latin America on Friday, he sat down in the White House for a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News anchor Natalie Pasquarella.

She was one of only three local TV reporters in the country granted an interview. Pasquarella used the rare opportunity to talk to Obama about North Carolina -- specifically Charlotte -- and what he’s doing to help people here.

RAW VIDEO: President Obama Talks Jobs With Natalie Pasquarella

BEHIND THE SCENES: Natalie Pasquarella Talks About Her Interview With Obama

Eyewitness News had just seven minutes to talk with the president, who wanted to bring attention to the growing relationships between American companies, including some in North Carolina, and those in Latin America.

“For every billion dollars that we export to a region like Latin America, we create 5,000 jobs here at home,” Obama said.

Charlotte-based Rhino Assembly Corp., which supplies handling equipment and other tools, is one of the companies the White House is holding up as a success story. Last spring, Rhino President Dan Brooks and owner Leif Anderson went to Brazil, looking to increase their export business. At the time, they were exporting about $10,000 worth of equipment a year.

“And it turned out that we made three strong relationships and that's when our business started to take off,” Brooks said. “We now have done pretty close to a million dollars in the past year, exporting our product to Brazil and a couple of other countries.”

Pasquarella asked Obama what he will do for other companies in North Carolina and Charlotte to make sure they see the same success.

“What you see, companies like Rhino being able to get a foothold in American production, American know-how, American ingenuity -- in this big, growing market -- translates into jobs in North Carolina and jobs here in the United States,” Obama said.

He added: “One of the changes in our economy that needs to take place is, instead of us just buying goods from other places, let's start selling goods outside the United States. That creates manufacturing jobs, service jobs here in the U.S.”

The U.S. and Brazil are the biggest democracies and economies in the Western Hemisphere. Experts said it's emerging as an economic powerhouse, and it now gets more exports from the U.S. than from any other country.

Brooks said, in many ways, it's personal.

“They like doing business with Americans,” Brooks said. “I'm not sure what it's like in the rest of the world, but it's very easy to do business with people in Brazil. They treat you like one of their own.”

Brooks said that before the Brazil trip, his Charlotte operation had just 14 employees. It will soon be at 21.

Eyewitness News asked what the U.S. government could do to help Rhino and other companies take greater advantage of the growing relationship with Latin America and told Brooks that Pasquarella would take his request to the president.

“Maybe a tax credit for each additional person that we hire due to the export sales that we're getting,” he said. “Something on that idea would help us; we'd be able to grow faster, add more people.”

Pasquarella then relayed that request to Obama.

“One of the things we've done over the last two years is provide unprecedented tax credits, particularly to small businesses and medium-size businesses like Rhino,” Obama said.

He added: “We've provided tax credits to them in terms of hiring folks, in terms of if they're providing health care to their employees. If they want to make investments right now in plants and equipment, then they can write off all those taxes right now instead of waiting over the course of several years, and that gives a huge incentive to make those investments today.”

Obama insisted that the biggest hurdle is persuading more North Carolina companies to think internationally.

“So many companies out there could expand their markets and sell a lot of product, but they just don't have access,” he said. “They're accustomed to a more localized market and we want to say to everybody, now we have a world economy, a global economy. Americans can succeed in that global economy, but they're going to need a little help from the U.S. government.”

WSOC-TV contacted four Republican lawmakers from the Charlotte area, asking their opinion of the president’s push to strengthen economic ties with Latin America. For more on that, click here.

Pasquarella also discussed the DNC with Obama. For more on that, click here.