Trade balance spins it wheels

Abstract

This year's projected imports from the moon—a few hundred pounds of moon rock and a recovered hunk of a Surveyor spacecraft—will have no effect on the U.S. trade balance. If the trade balance with the moon, though, becomes as bad in the next few years as it was with other earthlings last year, will be this year, and probably will be next year, then Congressmen will be pushing each other aside to demand mandatory quotas against the moon people. Total trade on the planet earth, measured as exports, unexpectedly soared 12% last year to hit an all-time high of $237 billion. It was the fourth highest annual growth rate in the past two decades and was more than double that of the previous year. These record-breaking exports, of course, reflected the high levels of economic activity that developed last year in almost all of the industrialized nations. The problem, as far as this country's balance ...