Trendevents: The Race Toward Global Atrophy

Clyde Wilson

1995

Published in:

Social Trends Newsletters, Jan. 1995, No. 131

There are those multinational corporations and entrepreneurial promoters, financial and political power brokers, and institutional investors that seem to think that "free trade" and global competitiveness is the panacea for all of the world's ills and problems. To them, isolation and protectionism are considered the greatest menace and impediment to economic stability and prosperity. Looking inward instead of outward to global prospectives has become reprehensible. But in spite of all the ballyhoo for world trade, gaining a technological and competitive edge, it is evident that it is not all that it is cracked up to be.

For the first time in its history, U.S. imports and exports hit $1 trillion in 1992 as world trade rose to a record $3.8 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund. But as exports of the United States climbed to new heights of $447,400,000,000, its imports also increased to $552,616,000,000, leaving the U.S. with a trade deficit of $105,216,000,000. Both U.S. imports and exports were larger than those of any other country. It is interesting to note that while Japan had less trade, it had a surplus of $107.04 billion with the U.S. being its largest deficit trader. The IMF survey states that global trade in 1992 increased seven percent from 1991.

Despite the fact that the United States is now exporting more goods and services than ever before in its history, with every step forward in the world trade arena it is taking more steps backward. Even if the U.S. could eventually gain that ever elusive edge in world trade, what would be the purpose or objective when under the present economic system it cannot even distribute the glut it produces to its own citizens or solve its own internal problems. Maybe in time the United States will become the dominant player in world trade after it uses or depletes most of its remaining irreplaceable and renewable resources, or becomes inundated with waste and pollution. That is when the U.S. will become the king of the global slush pile.