Trends in United States Foreign Trade

Abstract

United States foreign trade shows a general upward trend. At the turn of the present century exports were valued at $1,349,483,000, and in 1913 an advance of 76 per cent had raised this figure to $2,465,884,000. During the same period, imports of merchandise rose 113 per cent from $849,941,000 to $1,813,000,000. The war period of 1914-18 witnessed a marked expansion in both exports and imports, culminating on the wave of high prices in 1920 in an export trade of $8,228,000,000 and an import trade of $5,278,000,000. In terms of dollars these are the highest values ever recorded in the history of United States foreign trade, but values were inflated. Settling down to the twenties, our exports ranged generally between four billions and five billions, reaching $5,241,000,000 in 1929; while imports rose from $2,500,000,000 in 1921 to $4,399,000,000 in 1929. The depression witnessed the decline in value of foreign trade to $1,611,000,000 of exports and $1,323,000,000 of imports in 1932. Distressing shrinkage in prices accounted for a portion of this decline, and the volume of trade was better sustained than the value figures indicate. From this low point the value of exports and imports has increased almost steadily through 1939, when exports were valued at $3,177,000,000 and imports at $2,318,000,000. While part of this gain is to be attributed to price increase, volume of trade has also exhibited marked expansion. United States share of world trade tends to increase. That the foreign trade of the United States has grown more rapidly than the average of the world as a whole is evident from the share of world trade contributed by this country. Our exports during 1911-13 accounted for 12.4 per cent of total world export trade, increasing to 15.6 per cent in 1929. By 1932 this share had dropped to 12.2 per cent, and by 1938 had risen to 13.5 per cent. However, our export trade has not shown as sturdy recovery to predepression heights as is true of the world generally. On the import side, the picture is somewhat different. With 8.4 per cent of world import trade in 1911-13, we increased our share to 12.2 per cent in 1929, and dropped to 9.5 per cent in 1932 and to 8.0 per cent in 1938. We have retained a portion of the gain in our share of world exports, but the same cannot be stated of our participation in world imports. Exports have almost consistently represented 10 per cent of production of exportable merchandise. What share of our production finds a world outlet? How dependent are we upon export markets? Over the past twenty-five years we have somewhat increased our participation in world export trade, and we have little more than held our position in world import trade. As far back as 1899, the share of our production of exportable goods that was exported was estimated to have been 12.8 per cent. 3