Economic Report of the President

This report was just released today.

Chapter 4 is really interesting:

Exports can be expected to rise rapidly as the world economy recovers for a number of reasons. Just as trade typically falls faster than GDP in a recession (discussed in Chapter 3), it typically grows faster during a rebound. Trade-to-GDP ratios have fallen in the last year and can be expected to bounce back as the world economy recovers. This bounce-back alone will lead to rapid export growth. More generally, the crucial driver of exports is always the performance of the world economy. For U.S. goods and services to be bought abroad, demand in other countries must return robustly. This is one reason for the United States to strengthen its ties with fast-growing regions such as emerging East Asia. The faster our trade partners grow and the more we trade with fast-growing economies, the more demand for U.S. exports grows....

And which region would benefit most with increased trade? Since a lot of goods are made or assembled in the LA Basin, increased exports would benefit regional manufacturers, possibly at the expense of regional distributors (assuming that foreign and domestically produced goods were substitutes).

January port numbers were just released. Imports are up 1.8% over last year. Exports are up 31.8% over last year.

I was really expecting imports to be much higher