“I want us to sell stuff,” Mr. Obama said as he finished a trip to the West Coast, calling on Congress to continue supporting export financing agencies and announcing an array of plans aimed at helping manufacturers.

As this is an election year, Mr. Obama went for the ultimate photo op, using the spectacle of a new United Airlines Dreamliner as his backdrop to ask Congress not to cut financing for the Export-Import Bank, the American export credit agency.

The event exceeded the standards of the usual presidential factory tour. Boeing’s plant here, Mr. Obama said, is the biggest building in the world, and the president seemed to delight in his tour of the new plane, marveling at windows that tint turquoise at the touch of a button.

Mr. Obama even struck a nostalgic chord, telling workers that the plane he arrived on — Air Force One — was made at this Boeing plant 25 years ago. “One of the guys I met on the tour worked on the plane,” Mr. Obama said. “I told him he did a pretty good job. It’s flying smooth.”

For Mr. Obama, export growth is one area where he can point to success. Two years ago, he said in his State of the Union speech that he would work to double United States exports in five years, an announcement that sparked incredulity among trade economists. At the time, Mr. Obama had yet to articulate a trade policy.

Since then, the president’s goal


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