Recovery of American Foreign Trade

Abstract

IN SPITE of a marked increase in the value of exports and imports of merchandise since the depth of the depression was reached in 1932, our external commerce at the end of the calendar year 1936 had recovered little more than one-half the 1929 value. Imports have shown a somewhat greater resiliency than have exports, as a comparison of the figures will show. the same degree of recovery from the low figure of 1932, they displayed a marked difference in their approach to the 1929 level. The unit prices of exports in 1936 represented 129 per cent of the 1932 figure and 76 per cent of the 1929 level; import prices in 1936 were 124 per cent of those of 1932 and only 62 per cent of those of 1929. It becomes at once apparent that if import