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U.S. must compete
So what do we do? One step, certainly, is for the U.S. to regain its traditional economic competitiveness in the world marketplace. To do this will require long-term fundamental changes, including changing our view of international trade, and encouraging American firms to enter and compete in markets aboard.
In regaining our competitive position in the international marketplace, we must measure not only the quantity of our exports but their quality as well. It is not enough for us to achieve, say, a balance of trade with the Japanese in the next several years, if that balance consists primarily of sales of basic agricultural goods from the United States to Japan, while they send us supercomputers, automobiles and other highvalue products. While agricultural exports are very important, and that might be a balance on the international ledger books, it is certainly not a balance of investment in our own economy.
The recent U.S. export boom is a case in point. Basic commodities, such as agricultural products and natural resources, have experienced
86.9%