Politicians critical of trade and globalization often point to the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs as proof positive of America’s dwindling economic might. But the story of U.S. manufacturing shouldn’t begin and end with that single statistic. The true state of U.S. manufacturing is far more complicated – but also more hopeful.
On the third floor of a nondescript office building in a busy commercial strip in College Park, Maryland, foreign-owned start-ups can get a boost at the Maryland International Incubator
While anti-trade rhetoric has been a regular feature of the U.S. political landscape, opinion polls show that Americans are not in fact generally opposed to trade or trade agreements with other nations.
World trade is a major driver of the global economy. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), trade accounted for 30 percent of total global economic output in 2014, up from 20 percent in 1995. As the world has become increasingly globalized, trade has grown dramatically as a share of total global output.
Among the chief beneficiaries of the current Korean passion for potatoes are U.S. potato growers and processors, who’ve seen their exports explode in recent years. U.S. exporters credit one factor in particular for boosting the wide availability of American potatoes in Korea: free trade.