International market

“ 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. ”

“ Our exports and our economic strength depend upon our access to an open, stable, and growing world market. The nations of the world are becoming increasingly intertwined in a global economy. We must continue our efforts to remove foreign barriers to American goods and services, to open new markets, and to keep them open. ”

“ But in addition to the amount of foreign money thus employed in these bills of exchange, our vast foreign trade must result in the temporary employment here of the proceeds either of these bills or of goods sold in our market, to be used in the purchase of goods here, for investment, or for safe-keeping in time of trouble, and must greatly add to our available resources. ”

“ But if any of our people are sighing for a foreign market, and value it more highly than our own, they can import foreign raw material practically free of duty, and after advancing it into the higher forms of manufacture, can go out and possess the world’s markets. ”

“ As we observe World Trade Week, 1996, let us strive to give our Nation's exporters every opportunity to sell products freely and fairly and help our companies to meet the challenge of exploring markets abroad. Their efforts to maintain efficient, high-quality production and to promote American goods and services to an international clientele will lead to a stronger economy and a brighter future for us all. ”

“ I disagree with both these extremes. I hold that a properly adjusted competition between home and foreign products is the best gauge by which to regulate international trade. Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. ”

“ Better reflection or more experience has induced them to abandon that mode of reasoning, and to consider all such means of influencing foreign markets as nugatory; since, in the present active and enlightened state of the world, nations will supply themselves from the best sources, and the true policy of all producers, whether of raw materials or of manufactured articles, is, not vainly to endeavor to keep other vendors out of the market, but to conquer them in it by the quality and the cheapness of their articles. ”

“ Despite the high volume of our international trade, we still are far from matching the international sales efforts of our leading competitors. Only ten percent of our firms export, and only seven percent of our gross national produce finds its way into foreign markets-less than half the percentage of our major trading partners. ”

“ On this supposition, the foreign demand for the productions of the country is increased; which necessarily alters the international values to its advantage, and to the disadvantage of foreign countries, who, therefore, though they participate in the benefit of the new product, must purchase that benefit by paying for all the other productions of the country at a dearer rate than before. ”

“ We hold by this proposition, well understood and energetically supported in America, that "when a nation makes a market at home for nearly all its products, other nations have to come and seek what they require, and pay the highest price; and that, when it does not make a market at home, markets must be sought abroad, and then sales must be made at the lowest prices." ”

“ Purchase British articles with British articles, and you create two such aggregate values, and two such markets for British industry. Whereas, on the contrary, the entire value of every foreign article imported is net income to the foreigner and sustains foreign markets. Purchase foreign articles with British articles, and you only create one value for your own benefit instead of creating two, and only one market for British industry instead of two. ”

“ A better field for the former could not be found if British Commercial Union made the market secure of foreign caprice, while for steady industry under the old flag, under like institutions, under the same law, no wider scope exists in the universe. ”

“ Indeed, the only possible way in which all nations can share in the thrift and enterprise and improvements of each other, is through mutual international exchanges; and when each nation sees to it that it have a few commodities at least for which there is a strong demand among foreigners, and in the production of which themselves have a strong superiority, it may rest assured that it buys all it buys from abroad, gold included, at the cheapest rate to itself, and shares a part of the prosperity of every nation with which it trades. ”

“ It is in the fetching and carrying manufactures, accordingly, that foreign trade is chiefly employed. In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable foreigners to undersell our own workmen, even in the home market. ”

“ It may be questioned if figures showing the proportions of our industry devoted to supplying goods for the foreign market correctly indicate the importance of the foreign market to us. It may be urged that if we should lose our foreign market, we should merely turn to producing more for the domestic market, and that the loss would not be the whole of our receipts from foreign trade, but merely the cost of transition, and the loss that comes from shifting to production to which we are less suited. ”

“ So far as world or international trade is rightly presented as a competitive process, that competition takes place, not between America, Britain, Germany, but between a number of separate American, British, German firms. ”

“ In other words, whilst we are buying, and buying largely, our articles of provision and immediate consumpt from the foreigner, the supply of the raw material which we can reproduce in the shape of manufactures is falling off. The foreigner has the benefit of underselling us in the home market, and we are losing the power of competition in the markets abroad. ”

“ From the maturities, refunding operations, and interest remittances alone, growing out of the permanent investment of foreign money in our securities, there results a very great amount of international security and exchange business. Whether Europe's investment here amounts to three billions or four billions or five billions, it is impossible to say ”

“ Foreign investment plays an essential role in your growth, while your holdings of foreign currencies – and your management of your own currency – are coming to play a vital part in the international monetary system. ”

“ The subject of foreign exchange should be familiar, the fluctuations having an important bearing on purchasing power and trade, while exchange itself is dependent on foreign trade conditions, being an index of international transactions. ”

“ That competition we have to meet, not only in the countries mentioned, but in all countries where we meet them on equal terms; to meet such competition we must be able to produce more cheaply and a better article than others do, and we must safeguard our position as the world's bankers and carriers, as well as the position of our manufacturers. ”

“ In the so-called political economies of our forefathers we read a vast deal about the advantages to a country of having an international trade. It was supposed to be one of the great secrets of national prosperity, and a chief study of the nineteenth-century statesmen seems to have been to establish and extend foreign commerce.--Now, Paul, will you tell us the economic theory as to the advantages of foreign commerce? ”

“ If we possess ourselves these facilities of rapid, regular, and reliable information to an extent that no other nation does, we will be the first to reach the foreign market with our supplies, [Pg 28] the first to bring the foreign article into the markets of the world, and the proper recipients of the first and largest profits of the cream of the trade of every land. ”

“ The people of a nation have it within their power to advance the interests of their foreign commerce in two ways: one by intelligent legislation at home, and the other by intelligent diplomacy abroad. The shipment of merchandise from one country to another means to the selling nation a foreign market for the raw material, the employment of labor to the extent of from thirty to ninety per cent. ”

“ I do not doubt that a very largely increased foreign trade is accessible to us without bartering for it either our home market for such products of the farm and shop as our own people can supply or the wages of our working people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The direct benefits of commerce consist in increased Efficiency of the productive powers of the World. From this exposition we perceive in what consists the benefit of international exchange, or, in other words, foreign commerce. Setting aside its enabling countries to obtain commodities which they could not themselves produce at all, its advantage consists in a more efficient employment of the productive forces of the world. ”

“ First, we'll continue to expand trade in open markets around the world. International trade is an engine for growth that creates jobs, that lifts wages. That's why we've signed more trade agreements and lowered more trade barriers this year than in any recent memory. Our commitment to opening new markets to American goods is unshakable. ”

“ We have called upon other countries to open their markets to fair competition. We are working with our trading partners to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations by early next year aimed at opening markets worldwide. ”

“ Our foreign trade merits the best support of the Government and the most earnest endeavor of our manufacturers and merchants, who, if they do not already in all cases need a foreign market, are certain soon to become dependent on it. ”

“ Our commerce is rapidly increasing, and is extending more widely the circle of international exchanges. Great as has been the increase of our imports during the past year, our exports of domestic products sold in foreign markets have been still greater. ”

“ That freedom from restraint is calculated to give the utmost extension to foreign trade, and the best direction to the capital and industry of the country.
That the maxim of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, which regulates every merchant in his individual dealings, is strictly applicable as the best rule for the trade of the whole nation. [Pg 699]
That a policy founded on these principles would render the commerce of the world an interchange of mutual advantages, and diffuse an increase of wealth and enjoyments among the inhabitants of each State. ”

“ The foreign exchange market is in every sense "open"—‌anyone with bills to buy or sell and whose credit is all right can enter it and do business on a par with anyone else. There is no place where the trading is done, no membership, license or anything of the kind. ”

“ Accession to the World Trade Organization helps strengthen its ability to maintain strong growth rates but at the same time puts additional pressure on the hybrid system of strong political controls and growing market influences. ”

“ In what measure the need of individual countries to obtain materials of production from other lands and to find new markets for their own products is responsible for the growth of international dependence. ”

“ VI.13 Our present interest in international trade, however, is mainly directed to its effects on international price levels. Except for the export or import of money to adjust the price levels, international trade is at bottom merely an interchange of goods. Where the price level is not concerned, the money value of the goods sold by a country will exactly equal the value of those bought. ”

“ Today, we are preparing for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations. Through those negotiations we will continue to press for open markets for the products of our manufacturing firms. We will also press for greater market access for the products of America's farms and the products of our fast-growing service industries. ”

“ But a duty laid upon an article which may be produced here stimulates the skill and industry of our own country to produce the same article, which is brought into the market in competition with the foreign article, and the importer is thus compelled to reduce his price to that at which the domestic article can be sold, thereby throwing a part of the duty upon the producer of the foreign article. ”

“ In ordinary times the machinery of international finance does tend to distribute surplus stocks according to the needs of the different nations, for the production of the actual goods for export trade with which imports are paid for, the true base of credit, is continually proceeding. ”

“ Its sales of manufactured goods have continued to extend with a facility and promptitude of results which have excited the serious concern of countries that, for generations, had not only controlled their home markets, but had practically monopolized certain lines of trade in other lands. ”

“ V. Nothing tends to introduce an advantageous foreign trade more than low and determined prices. In the first place, it draws strangers to market. This we call passive commerce. Secondly, it gives merchants an opportunity to distribute the productions of their country with greater advantage among other nations, which is what we call active foreign trade. ”

“ If the manufacturer for the home market will be compelled, as you say he must be, to lower his prices at home, in order to meet the competition of foreign imported manufactured goods, which are still liable in a duty, WHAT BECOMES OF YOUR FOREIGN MARKET AFTER YOU HAVE ANNIHILATED OR EQUALIZED THE HOME ONE? If the foreigner can afford to pay the freight and the duties, and still to undersell you at home, how can you possibly contrive to do the same by him? If his goods are cheaper than yours in this country, when all the costs are included, how can you compete with him in his market? ”