The Benefits of International Trade

America cannot have a growing economy or lift the wages and incomes of our citizens unless we continue to reach beyond our borders and sell products, produce, and services to the 95% of the world’s population that lives outside the United States.

Why is trade important?

• Jobs. More than 40 million American jobs depend on trade, and trade is critical to the success of many sectors of the U.S. economy.
• Growth. According to economic data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, U.S. real manufacturing output has risen by nearly 80% over the past 25 years. This represents the continuation of a long trend: U.S. manufacturing value-added has grown eightfold since 1947 in real terms.
• Business. 98% of the roughly 300,000 U.S. companies that export are small and medium-sized businesses, and they account for one-third of U.S. merchandise exports, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Trade and Manufacturing

• Vast productivity gains relating to increased use of automation and information technologies have helped U.S. manufacturers retain and in many areas enhance their global competitiveness in recent years, even as the number of Americans employed in manufacturing has declined since its peak in 1979.
• U.S. exports of manufactured goods reached nearly $1.4 trillion in 2019, accounting for more than 82% of all U.S. merchandise exports.
• The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that exports of manufactured goods directly support more than 6 million U.S. manufacturing jobs—roughly half of all manufacturing employment.

Trade and U.S. Services

• U.S. exports of services are also booming, reaching nearly $850 billion in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
• The United States is by far the world’s largest exporter of services, and America’s globally competitive service industries—including audiovisual, banking, energy services, express delivery, information technology, insurance, and telecommunications—benefit immensely from opportunities abroad.

Trade and Farming

• American farmers and ranchers also depend on exports. About 25% of U.S. farm products by value are exported each year.
• For many crops, such as wheat or almonds, more than half is sold abroad. U.S. agriculture is so productive there’s no way Americans could consume this bounty alone.

Benefits of Imports

• Amid a renewed focus on boosting U.S. exports, it is important to bear in mind that imports benefit Americans as well. They bring lower prices and more choices for American families as they try to stretch their budgets. Companies also depend on imports for raw materials and competitively priced inputs.
• Imports give us access to products that would not otherwise be available—such as fresh fruit in the winter. Access to imports boosts the purchasing power of the average American household by about $18,000 annually.
• Companies’ imports of intermediate goods, raw materials, and capital goods account for more than 60% of all U.S. goods imports—lowering costs for manufacturers and other businesses and helping them hone their competitive edge.

Free Trade Agreements

Indeed, tremendous benefits have flowed from U.S. free-trade agreements (FTAs), which cover 20 countries.

• These countries represent approximately 6% of the world’s population outside the United States, and yet these markets purchase nearly half of all U.S. exports, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. In other words, U.S. FTAs do an outstanding job making big markets even out of small economies.
• The trade balance is a poor measure of the success of these agreements, but deficits are often cited by trade skeptics as a reason why the United States should not negotiate free trade agreements. However, with regard to manufactured goods, the United States ran a cumulative trade surplus with its trade agreement partner countries of more than $200 billion over the past decade (2009-2019), according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

In the end, we cannot turn our back on international trade. It is an inevitable part of the world in the 21st century. We simply need our elected leaders to prioritize initiatives to open foreign markets so that U.S. companies can sell more of our goods and services overseas.

Trade can provide a path to jobs and prosperity if we have the courage to seize it.

Topics

• International
• Trade Agreements