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.S.economy.Lowe s, which sells hardware to builders andthe millions of Americans who perform littlejobs around the house.© AP Images© AP Images96 97© Jean-Pierre Lescourret/Corbis © AP Images© AP ImagesAbove: Health care represents a growing share of U.S.economic output and a growing cost© AP Imagesburden for American government and business.Opposite page from top: Holiday shopping at the end of the year can mean success or failurefor retailers; U.S.exports to China include McDonalds restaurants.Below: Education is viewed as one way to reverse a trend of income disparity in the United States.© AP Images © AP Images98 99C H A P T E RA U.S.EconomyLinkedto the WorldDespite political divisions,the United States showsno sign of retreatfrom global engagementin trade and investment.© AP ImagesOpen trade  dovetailed with peace; hightariffs, trade barriers, and unfair economiccompetition, with war.& Secretary Cordell HullU.S.Department of State1948Trade ties the United States economy inextricablyto the markets and economies of the rest of the world.In2007, the U.S.gross domestic product the output of U.S.-basedworkers and property totaled nearly $14 trillion.One out of everyeight dollars, or $1.6 trillion, came from exports to foreign destina-tions.Imports into the United States were significantly higher, total-ing $2.3 trillion.In addition to traded goods and services, huge tides of financial transac-tions flow across global borders.U.S.companies and individuals directlyinvest more than $2 trillion abroad annually, making the United States theworld s largest direct investor in foreign economies.It also receives moreinvestment from outside its borders than any other nation.As a world finan-cial capital, New York is the center of an international hedge fund industry ofprivate investors that amassed nearly $1.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2006.While U.S.exports add to the nation s gross domestic product, the largervolume of imports reduces it.The trade imbalance over the past decade hascreated a politically sensitive tradeoff: The surplus of imports tended tolower prices paid by American consumers, but it also depressed wages forsome workers in industries facing foreign competition.The U.S.tradedeficits have also undermined the value of the U.S.dollar compared to othermajor currencies, increasing concerns about the stability of the world s finan-cial markets, as described in chapter 8.What does the United States export? The largest single category in 2006was motor vehicles and their parts and engines, totaling $107 billion.Semi-conductors ($52 billion), civilian aircraft ($41 billion), computer accessoriesAbove: Rising imports from Asia such as these cargo containers unloaded in Tacoma,($36 billion), pharmaceuticals ($31 billion), telecommunications equipmentWashington, created political tension in the United States.Previous spread: The for-($28 billion), chemicals ($27 billion), plastic materials ($25 billion), andeign exchange value of the U.S.dollar alternatively plunged and soared in the globalmedicinal equipment ($22 billion) followed on the list of major export indus-financial crisis that began in 2008.try categories.102 103© AP ImagesU.S.oil and gas imports totaled rency devaluations were widely con- oversee member nations compli- The theoretical argument for free$330 billion in 2006.Americans sidered to have worsened the 1930s ance with trade agreements.The trade, made more than two centuriesimported $257 billion worth of motor Great Depression by stifling interna- GATT process has successfully low- ago by Scottish economist Adamvehicles, engines, and parts that year, tional commerce.ered tariffs on most manufactured Smith in The Wealth of Nations, holdsalong with $100 billion in computers Through the formation of the items, stimulating a vast increase in that all nations prosper if each con-and computer accessories, $91 billion United Nations and the agreements world commerce far beyond the centrates on manufacturing andin various kinds of apparel and tex- on international economic policies vision of the Bretton Woods organiz- trading goods where it has a particu-tiles, $64 billion in pharmaceuticals, reached at the 1944 Bretton Woods ers.The exception has been agricul- lar advantage: France its wine,$36 billion in televisions and VCRs, Conference in the United States, the tural tariffs, which have remained Britain its woolens.On the flip side,and $29 billion worth of toys and allied powers hoped to replace the relatively high because of the politi- for Britain to put a high tariff ongames.The variety of traded items militant nationalism that led to the cal strength of the farming sector in French wines raises the price of allspans virtually everything Americans war with cooperative economic poli- both wealthy and developing nations wines for British consumers.make, wear, use, or consume.cies.During the Cold War between and the desire to safeguard essential But theory and politics began toThe United States is the world s the Soviet bloc and the West, trade food production.collide in the 1960s and early 1970slargest agricultural exporter, with liberalization with Europe and Asia Government subsidies and tariffs when the rising manufacturingone out of every three acres planted became an instrument of U.S.for- on farm products have long been prowess of Japan and Germanyfor export, according to U.S.govern- eign policy and a way to promote politically controversial.American began seriously to erode U.S.produc-ment surveys.The value of U.S [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]