The Looming Export Slump

摘要

With the trade gap widening to historic proportions, the predictable hand-wringing has set in over America's import dependency. But imports have been rising for decades—shooting upward, in fact, at a real compound annual rate of 7.1% in the past decade. No, it's the likely collapse of the American export boom that should really have us working our rosaries. Until Asian markets began to unravel, exports had been gaining at a 9.1% real annual rate since 1987. In March, however, exports were flat-lining on a year-over-year basis— largely because exports to Asia, which account for a third of the U.S. total, fell 17% below last year's level.