Global Goods Competition

As the US refocuses on the impacts of international trade through the lenses of many trade agreements, it doesn’t hurt to consider from where our competitors are coming. The US wants to reduce, for example, its trade deficit with China. To do that, either China will have to buy more of our goods or we will have to buy less of theirs.

Today I want to focus on US exports of goods to China and the rest of the world. I am ignoring services exports because we have a surplus in our trade with services. Our trade problem seems to reside in goods. The IMF keeps some good statistics on goods trade, and their best database has some nice detail for the years 2013 to 2017. That’s five years – a long enough time for my buddy Nolan to reach his current age of 5 and long enough to draw some conclusions. My main conclusion is that if the US wants to raise its exports, it is not going to be easy.

The table below contains some relevant data on exports of goods. We see that in 2013, the world exported goods whose value in dollars was a bit more than $18 trillion. Since that time, goods exports did not increase; rather, they fell to a level of $17.7 trillion in 2017. The appetite for goods exports has clearly not grown. It fell by almost half a trillion dollars. Let’s agree that with a shrinking pie and a lot of eager-beaver countries, it won’t be easy to expand US exports of goods.

Comparing the next two lines, we see that as of 2017, advanced nations were selling only a bit more than the sum of all emerging nations. It was about a 60/40 split in 2017, and that split reflects the very strong desire of emerging markets to grow through exports of goods. Advanced nations will not give in easily so the future portends a time wherein both advanced and emerging nations will want to compete with the US to supply the world’s demand for goods.

The countries I chose to compare were based on foods that I love. I also chose ones that are major exporting countries and some with which the US might have a special trade relationship. Notice that with the exceptions of China, Mexico, and South Korea, all these countries shared the experiences of declining goods exports from 2013 to 2017. I am guessing that all those countries will try to do the same thing we are trying to do in the US – find a way to export more.

China’s exports increased between 2013 and 2017. China represented about 12% of the world’s exports in 2013. China was the largest country exporter. But notice even China can’t be too happy with its $67 billion increase in exports between 2013 and 2017. That represented a 3% increase in four years or less than 1% growth per year. Mexico’s was larger at 8% over four years or 2% per year. South Korea's increase was less than 4% per year. Those performances are nothing to brag about at the bar at Tacos Guaymas Mexican Restaurant. So even China, Mexico, and South Korea will not relent in their goals to produce and sell goods to the world.

In 2013, the US was the world’s second largest goods exporter and we claimed 9% of the worlds exports of goods. That’s not bad. But as I have said before, our problem with goods trade is not production or exporting. Our problem is our voracious appetite for buying goods.

Data source: http://data.imf.org/?sk=388DFA60-1D26-4ADE-B505-A05A558D9A42

Goods Exports of Selected Areas
2013 to 2017, in billions of dollars
Source: imf.org:
	2013	2017	% of             World	Change
			2013	2013 to 2017
World	18,193	17,702	100	-491
Advanced Nations	10,685	10,171	59	-514
Emerging Markets	7,509	7,136	41	-373
China	2,210	2,277	12	67
United States	1,579	1,547	9	-32
Germany	1,451	1,441	8	-10
Japan	714	687	4	-27
S. Korea	560	574	3	14
Russia	522	353	3	-169
Canada	465	424	3	-41
Mexico	380	410	2	30
India	314	299	2	-15