Some of the stiffest competition facing U.S. exporters does not come from Europe—or even China—but the U. S. Treasury Department. Yesterday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that foreign customers spent $1.83 trillion on U.S. goods and services in 2010. They spent $119 billion on U.S. agricultural exports, …
President Obama reportedly plans to name Austan Goolsbee to head his Council of Economic Advisers. This appointment is good news for advocates of expanded international trade. One of the world’s leading trade economists, Jagdish Bhagwati, described Goolsbee as a valuable source of free-trade advice over almost a decade. During the …
Consider these recent print headlines: Economic Growth Slowed by Trade Gap; Economic Growth Cut Sharply Due to Trade Gap; and Economy Slows to 1.6 Percent as Trade Gap Widens. The people who wrote those headlines and the corresponding articles must have awfully short memories. Last year, the trade deficit fell …
Revving up its trade dispute with the Obama Administration over trucking, on August 16 the Mexican government announced revisions to the list of U.S. goods subject to tariffs when they are imported into Mexico. Although Mexico will remove 16 U.S. products from the list of 89 that are currently subject …
If Congressman Peter Defazio (D–OR), sponsor of the End the Trade Deficit Act, had grown up in Kansas instead of Massachusetts, he might have learned a valuable lesson from an association called the Kansas Agri-Women. In 1978, this group started placing billboards across the state proclaiming, “One Kansas farmer feeds …
Growing Chinese investment around the world is a major international economic development. In the U.S., the story is how limited Chinese investment is beyond government bonds. Limitations on Chinese investment in the U.S. are not imposed by the PRC. Other than bonds, the PRC invests primarily in natural resources, and …
President Barack Obama recently announced the appointment of 20 private-sector members to the President’s Export Council. Although the President promised to provide Americans an “unprecedented level of openness in Government,” the White House announcement did not mention the numerous financial connections between President Obama and his appointees. To correct that …
President Barack Obama recently promised that his Administration will be “going to bat” for U.S. exporters. A look at his specific recommendations suggests that the country would be better off if he stuck to golf. For example, President Obama promised improved access to credit to exporters through the Export-Import Bank …
Tick, tick, tick — the sound of a Congressional trade bomb. By its own, not very exacting standards, Congress has patiently waited for change in Chinese currency policy. The single most likely time for that was the G-20 finance minister’s over the weekend in South Korea. But nothing meaningful from …
