... trade in 1998 was $6.6 trillion, a figure larger than the gross national product (GNP) of every nation in the world except the United States and four times the GNP of Latin America. This is one indication of international trade's importance as part of world economic activity. Not only is it large in volume, but it is also one of the fastest-growing areas of economic activity. In the United States, exports and imports of goods and services were $1.9 trillion, or over 25% of GNP in 1997. This percentage is twice as high as it was 20 years earlier. Yet even this does not adequately measure the significance of foreign trade to the U.S. economy. For one thing, exports in some lines are much higher percentages of output, over 50% in some cases. Some major U.S. exports in 1997 were capital goods, $253 billion; industrial supplies and materials, $148 billion; ...

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