Export trade

“ A large export trade with such a country would be a profitable and mutually beneficial business activity for an enterprising commercial and manufacturing nation, with broader business and politico-economic policies than are found in some of the European countries. ”

“ We have inland navigation. Our last exports did not exceed £1,000,000. Our export trade is entirely in the hands of foreigners. We have no manufactures—depend for supplies on other nations—and so far are we from having any carrying trade, that, as I have already said, our exports are in the hands of foreigners. Besides the profit that might be made by our natural materials, much greater gains would accrue from their being first wrought before they were exported. ”

“ But if free raw material be necessary to secure an export trade and the foreign markets, then I answer that our manufacturers to-day have substantial free trade in foreign raw materials which they make into the finished product in the United States, provided they export it. ”

“ Under these trade arrangements a free or favored admission has been secured in every case for an important list of American products. Especial care has been taken to secure markets for farm products, in order to relieve that great underlying industry of the depression which the lack of an adequate foreign market for our surplus often brings. An opening has also been made for manufactured products that will undoubtedly, if this policy is maintained, greatly augment our export trade. ”

“ But do we, civilized beings, indulge in the absurd and barbarous notion that we must own the countries with which we wish to trade? Here are our official reports before us, telling us that of late years our export trade has grown enormously, not only of farm products, but of the products of our manufacturing industries ”

“ Englishmen might easily retain for themselves the profits which foreigners had till now secured, and manufacturers were undoubtedly doing a considerable export trade in the middle of the fifteenth century. ”

“ Thus trade becomes both import and export. The first step is for the tradesman or his representative to travel about peddling goods, or for an owner of wares or money to offer capital to an itinerant merchant with the object that the latter may divide the profits with him later on. ”

“ The more other nations lower their trade barriers, the more American firms can export. And the more we export, the more jobs we'll create. The more the economies of other nations expand, the more their people can buy our products, creating even more American jobs. Our exports to other countries account for some 7 million American jobs. ”

“ American producers send more than 90 per cent. of their entire foreign shipments, or more than $2,000,000,000 worth of goods, to nineteen countries, and the remaining ten per cent. covers the trade with all the rest of the world. England buys about 26 per cent. of the total American export; Canada 15 per cent.; Germany 13 per cent.; France 7 per cent.; the Netherlands 4 per cent.; Italy, Cuba, and Belgium, each 3 per cent.; Mexico, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Russia, and Brazil, each 2 per cent.; and Spain, Austria-Hungary, Panama, China, and the Philippines, each about 1 per cent. ”

“ If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; ”

“ That such is the case is the natural consequence of our submission, even in part, to the system that looks to compelling the export of raw products, the exhaustion of the land, the cheapening of labour, and the export of the labourer. ”

“ The countries not possessing a native supply, could obtain it only by what was called a favourable balance of trade, that is to say, by exporting to a value exceeding that of their imports, and receiving the difference in money. ”

“ The case which we have just examined, is an example in how remarkable a manner every cause which materially influences exports, operates upon the prices of imports. According to the ancient theory of the balance of trade, and to the associations of the generality of what are termed practical men to this day, the sole benefit derived from commerce consists in the exports, and imports are rather an evil than otherwise. ”

“ The vulgar theory disregards this benefit, and deems the advantage of commerce to reside in the exports: as if not what a country obtains, but what it parts with, by its foreign trade, was supposed to constitute the gain to it. An extended market for its produce—an abundant consumption for its goods—a vent for its surplus—are the phrases by which it has been customary to designate the uses and recommendations of commerce with foreign countries. ”

“ Although then the rise in the price of most of our own commodities, would for a time check exportation generally, and might permanently prevent the exportation of a few commodities, it could not materially interfere with foreign trade, and would not place us under any comparative disadvantage as far as regarded competition in foreign markets. ”

“ Suppose that a country should be opened to our merchants, disposed to buy from us in abundance, but which can sell to us scarcely anything, as every commodity which it affords could be got cheaper by us from some other quarter. Nevertheless, our trade with this country will enable us to obtain from all other countries their commodities at a lower price. At the first opening of this commerce of mere exportation, we must have received in payment a large quantity of money; for which our customer will have been indemnified by other countries, in exchange for her commodities. ”

“ From a practical point of view, to analyze American foreign trade in detail would be an endless and useless task. It has grown to be what it is through exports of food-stuffs and raw materials, followed naturally by the surplus products of manufacturing. Of imports the same may be said, reversing the order of the progression. The land furnished the material, and labor came at its call from all parts of the world. ”

“ In the last 12 months, we have started to shift the thrust of the economy from imports to exports. In this effort, we have had initial success—which is reflected in the favorable balance of trade, the unprecedented level of our foreign reserves, and in the influx of foreign investment. Our exports increased by 57%, 27% of which are new products. ”

“ Our exports especially are increasing beyond all anticipation. All we sell and all we buy abroad is paid and settled for on the gold basis. The prices of our principal articles of export, of our agricultural staples, are virtually determined in the foreign market. ”

“ One country exports those commodities which it can produce the cheapest, in exchange for those of other countries that are either not produced at all in the first country, or can be produced only at a greater cost than by import. The immediate force impelling to the export and import of commodities is, in all cases, a difference in their values in the two countries. ”

“ And along with this vast aggrandizement of manufacturing industry and commerce, there has been a steady increase of both imports and exports, as well as of revenue from customs. The increase in imports has consisted of articles of luxury and raw materials for manufacture. And, as if to leave nothing wanting in the demonstration, the increase of exports has constantly included more and more of the products of agriculture. ”

“ The manufacturer or the merchant must take the pains to accommodate a direct import trade to the exigencies of the local market. As an example, smaller bales and shorter lengths are requisite in the piece goods. The establishment of sample warehouses at the treaty ports, and in the more important trade-centres of the interior, where bales of shirting, cotton and woollen goods, cases of farming implements, &c., could be opened and sold for cash, would appeal to the natives. ”

“ And on Thursday, we learned that the American economy set a new record for exports in a single month. Millions of American jobs depend on exports. More exports support better and higher-paying jobs -- and to keep our economy expanding, we need to keep expanding trade. ”

“ In return, however, the people of France have benefited largely, for they supply over eighty per cent. of the imports of these African possessions, and take about seventy per cent. of the exports. The United States sends machinery, oils, and tobacco, and takes the raw products of the country in exchange. Trade is on a stable and safe basis, and the consuming power of the country is increasing rapidly in the direction of manufactured goods and the conveniences of civilized life. ”

“ Today, with our total trade expanded from P1.8 billion in 1954 to P1.9 billion, we have channelled 42 per cent of it to Europe, Asia, and Central and South Amer­ica. This geographical broadening of our trade is an en­couraging feign of growing stability and lessened dependence on a single country us the source of our imports and the market for our exports. ”

“ On the other hand, there are imports so entirely of foreign origin, and so free from considerations of competition with domestic industry, that a large revenue may be raised upon them in the custom-house, without disturbing the freedom or equity of international trade. ”

“ In the case of England and Germany, as well as many other prosperous countries whose foreign-trade sheets show an excess of imports over exports, this excess represents the profit on trading abroad, and the inflow of returns upon capital invested abroad. ”

“ Any cause which alters the exports or imports from one country into another, alters the division of the advantage of interchange between those two countries. Suppose the discovery of a new process, by which some article of export, or some article not previously exported, can be produced so cheap as to occasion a great demand for it in other countries. This of course produces a great influx of money from other countries, and lowers the prices of all articles imported from them, until the increase of importation produced by this cause has restored the equilibrium. ”

“ If they were entirely separate, without political or commercial connection, it is manifest, that the consumption of the manufacturing states of foreign articles could not exceed twenty millions, the sum at which the value of their exports, of domestic products, and the profit of their foreign trade is estimated. ”

“ The excess of the value of imports over that of exports, which is regarded by some as an adverse and alarming symptom in British trade, is in large part readily accounted for on the ground of shipping receipts, insurance returns, interest on capital employed in foreign trade, merchants' profits, and the income derived from foreign investments. ”

“ The other modes of payment for the excess of imports are, of course, well known to you all. In the first place, the difference is much greater in appearance than in reality, because of the difference in values, the imports being charged at their value on arrival here, while the exports represent their value in this country, not the price at which the goods are eventually sold—the stated values are nett—and the profits of our merchants should be deducted from the value of the imports, and added to that of our exports respectively. ”

“ The exports amount to about one-nineteenth part of the whole; and, perhaps, as they are manufactured goods, to about one-tenth part of the whole manufactures of the country exported: but the manufactures exported are not equal to one-third part of those consumed at home, so that not above one-thirtieth part of our manufacturers are maintained by the trade to India. ”

“ England might possibly import more goods from, than she would export to, France, but she would in consequence export more to some other country, and France would import more from that country; so that the exports and imports of all countries would balance each other ”

“ Today one out of every six manufacturing jobs is tied to exports. So first, I offer a strategic trade policy, including new free trade agreements with the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. By increasing trade we increase American jobs. ”

“ Classifying the exports upon this legitimate system, we find that, in round numbers, not very far from eight-ninths of the total amount of foreign trade exports come under the denomination of the shorter voyage. Thus of these total exports of thirty-five millions, less than four millions belong to the far off traffic. ”

“ It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce that the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the wealth of the nation. The extent of the prosperous commerce of the nation must be regulated by the amount of its exports, and an important addition to the value of these will draw after it a corresponding increase of importations. It has happened in the vicissitudes of the seasons that the harvests of all Europe have in the late summer and autumn fallen short of their usual average. ”

“ We export, also, some of our manufactured products which compete successfully in the foreign market. A majority of them consists of those articles whose principal value is contributed by labor—our intelligent, energetic, efficient American labor, aided by superior machinery and inventive ingenuity; articles representing that striking, important and natural combination: the best labor, commanding the highest rate of wages, and producing at the lowest cost. A large exporting merchant tells me that when he finds a manufactured article 65, or in some cases even 60 per cent. ”