Hard to believe, but 25 years ago, the U.S. was the largest exporter of goods. And was 3x larger than China. Now, China is 70% larger than the US.

25 comments

1. Not really China focused on manufacturing and leveraging low labor costs, infrastructure investments, and trade policies. At the same time, the U.S. transitioned toward a service-driven, innovation-led economy, prioritizing advanced industries like technology, finance, and healthcare, which now account for a significant share of global value creation manufacturing became less central to its growth strategy and is still the second largest exporter.

2. I bet a significant portion of Netherlands’ goods is ASML machines

3. We decided it would be a great idea to shift our manufacturing to as many hostile countries as possible.

4. Wow that growth by China is incredible. I mean even in the 90’s it still seemed like everything came from China, but even beyond this it still grew by leaps and bounds.

5. So EU biggest exporter by far, isn’t it?

6. We need to fix this dependance.

7. not hard to believe at all if you look at the massive sell out of US by the US 1% to China.

8. *Except* there is a huge difference in what is being exported.

   China is the world’s largest exporter of raw materials and low value goods.

   The US and Germany are the world’s largest exporters of value added goods.

   Very big difference there. Most of what China exports can be replaced by other nations if required. The same can not be said for what the US and Germany exports, which gives us significantly more trade leverage. Just look at China’s ban of Germanium, Antimony, and Gallium export to the US. None of these are rare. They are produced as byproducts of aluminum and zinc production. China has been the main exporter just due to them being able to do it cheapest, but they have no lock on these material. The US can *easily* replace Chinese supply of these materials with our own domestic zinc and aluminum production channels. All it takes is 3-5 years and a couple billion dollars and we don’t need China anymore for these.

9. globalization

10. It’s not ‘hard to believe’. Thats when globalization kicked in. China had cheap labor, no regulations and a massive population.

    Funny how hard left Canada fell off the list. I wonder what happened.

11. China focused on supply side stimulus. Building out infrastructure and investing in their companies directly. This worked very well for them because it compounded with demand side stimulus policies from their trade partners.

12. Everyone talks about cheap labour costs as an excuse to chinas rapid rise but I fail to see how strong the correlation really is. Take EVs for example in recent years Chinese companies like BYD have been putting out stellar vehicles that are priced very cheaply compared to their western counterparts and in this case labour costs only account for roughly 10 percent of the manufacturing costs so there must be something else going on here as to why China has been able to innovate so rapidly. The fact Canada and the US have 100 percent tariffs on Chinese vehicles is an indication western car companies can’t compete.

13. Not only that but imo price is not a great metric to track exports because US goods are inflated because you have to buy them with the dollar. If there was a central non-dollar currency then these prices would be even lower for the US. 

14. How is Netherlands 4 th ?

15. Oh damn. Before seeing this, I would have guessed that the 1980s was the last time that USA was #1 in exports.

16. And the US is still crushing it

17. Now do services 😉 

18. It was done on purpose by the oligarchy of the United States. Then the Chinese learned and improved. The US elites are still rich. Don’t blame China. Also – I doubt the solar panel boom would have happened had industry stayed in the US.

19. China could experience a loss of momentum in international trade over the next ten years vs ASEAN.

20. In that same 25 years, US republicans waged war on US working class, US corporations moved businesses out of US for profits, and now tariffs for e dry product that’s supposed to “drive manufacturing back to US from China,” but biz just moves to other third world country w zero child labor laws,

    The wealthy’s war on the middle class is over, middle class will soon be over and will def have lost.

21. Increases (no idea if this is adjusted for inflation)

    China 🇨🇳: 1357%

    USA 🇺🇸: 258%

    Germany 🇩🇪: 311%

    Japan 🇯🇵: 150%

    Italy 🇮🇹: 281%

    France 🇫🇷: 198%

22. And what does that mean for the US ability to wage war? China has blown away this capacity helped by free trade ideology.

23. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA.

24. Most things people own have “Made in China” on it or full of components inside it…so I’m surprised it’s only that little… I would think China exports 10x more than anyone in world

25. That makes the price difference enormous and not only that.

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