* No. 1 U.S. export item is not what you think
All the talk of trade imbalance and offshoring of expertise got me thinking: What is it that the U.S. makes and sells in abundance to other countries? Are there things we’re exceptionally good at manufacturing that are in demand by others? The point being, if we have good stuff to sell, are we selling it? Where can I go to find out exactly what it is that the U.S. makes here and sells abroad?
This is a difficult piece of information to find. I started with a search on the Federal Trade Commission’s Web site (http://www.ftc.gov). The site is predictably government-like, i.e., tough to find anything immediately useful without lots of surfing. It was clear I’d spend a fruitless hour or two poking around on the FTC site.
A Google search on the term “U.S. exports” got me to the International Trade Administration (ITA) Web site: http://www.ita.doc.gov. This is a very well crafted site, full of great information about U.S. exports and imports. Still, I couldn’t find the kind of information I was looking for, so I clicked the “Contact Us” button and e-mailed someone at the ITA. The response came back within less than a half-hour.
The person responding directed me to TradeStats Express (http://www.tse.export.gov). There I found an easy to navigate site that promised to hold the information I was looking for. By clicking “National Trade Data,” then clicking “Product Profiles of U.S. Merchandise Trade with a Selected Market,” I got was I was searching for, sort of.
I wasn’t prepared for the information I got. If this site is to be believed, $149 billion, about 18% of our export income for the year 2004, came from selling (get this) nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, etc., and parts. Uh, excuse me; we haven’t built a nuclear reactor in this country since, what, the 1960s or ’70s? I wanted to know more detail about this, but I’d gone as far as I could go with TradeStats Express.
The second most popular group of items to be exported included electric machinery, sound equipment and TV equipment. This was followed by No. 3: vehicles, except railway or tramway, and parts. And No. 4: optic, photo, medical and surgical equipment. All four categories accounted for 48.7% of U.S. exports last year, some $400 billion, give or take.
I would’ve guessed software (I was thinking Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and other biggies), computer hardware (HP/Compaq, IBM, Dell, Gateway), entertainment in the form of movies and music, and weapons of warfare – not necessarily in that order. Oh, and truth be told, we’re probably selling a lot of California wine on this continent and overseas these days. And Google. Definitely Google.
But nuclear reactors? Boilers? It’s a mystery to me. Can anyone shed light on this subject?
