How to Rev Up American Exports

The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel moderates a discussion on the U.S. trade gap and how to fire up the export engines. Read the edited excerpts of the conversation below.

Building a U.S. export economy start with a new mind-set for companies

Here's one comment:

Only 1% of U.S. firms today are exporters. In a sense, U.S. firms have never had the export muscle—or to the extent that they had it, that muscle has atrophied over time.

And one of four recommendations:

1. GLOBALIZE ATTITUDES OF U.S. BUSINESS

To ensure growth, U.S. businesses should recognize the importance of developing foreign markets, including locally based products and services. They should set targets and goals for increasing participation in foreign markets and encourage more U.S. nationals to live abroad for a period. Government can help by providing support and education to smaller and medium-size businesses to increase their exports.

Related article:

Leading with a Global Mindset (1998) by Laurel Delaney

World Currency: The U.S. Dollar

David Wessel, economics editor for The Wall Street Journal, writes: "Weaker Dollar Is No Elixir for Economy."

Quick snippet:

The logic, drawn from textbooks, is that a decline in the dollar will make U.S. exports cheaper for foreign customers, so they will buy more, and will make Asian exports more expensive, so the world will buy less. It's no magic elixir.

Illustration credit here.