Trading Soybeans for Computers
America as a $295 billion trade deficit with China, but the bigger problem may be the technological imbalance between what we are importing and what they are exporting. It's not just the trade deficit with China, it's the technological trade deficit. The majority of our exports to China are raw products like petroleum and soybeans, the two largest categories being exported, while the majority of China’s exports to the United States are manufactured products like computers and other technical equipment. We send corn and sorghum to China, they ship us back batteries and toys. We sell them coal and ores, they sell us circuit boards and car parts. We ship them tanned hides and meat, and then receive back optical fibers and medical equipment. Advanced societies buy raw resources from backward societies and sell them back the manufactured goods. We export scrap metal to China, they send us back steel. We send them scrap copper, they ship us back the equipment of which that copper is ...