The above graphic comes courtesy of Visual Economics (click here for a larger view of the graphic and ht to Big Picture) and partially addresses the lazy and snarky rhetorical question I posited yesterday regarding the significance of our exports in our post-industrial, service-oriented economy.
First, some perspective; our total exports in 2008 were $1.3 Trillion while imports were $2.1 trillion. China was our third rated export destination, after Canada and Mexico, with $71 billion in exports while we imported $337 billion of goods from there in 2008. More data here.
Takeaways from the graphic:
1.) technology is our leading export category followed by agricultural products, interesting that our newest and oldest products lead the charge;
2.) scrap and waste comprise one of our top five export product categories to China and no, that category does not include our treasury paper;
3.) the growth that we’ve experienced in exports to China is enormous, we know that’s true of our imports from them but, while probably intuitive, interesting that the supernormal trade growth goes both ways
4.) the degree of interconnectedness is indeed as high as we’re often told given the import, export and investor/investee relationships that exist between the two
5.) exports to China, even allowing for the overall rapid historical growth, were down in Q4 2008 over Q4 2007. If we’re letting the dollar’s value slide because we are banking on exports reviving employment and the economy then we have a stake in their recovery, which does look much more advanced than our own.
