I was meandering through the Internet when I found a report from the US Federal Government which was released on Thursday. It's called
Report on Foreign Trade Barriers and talks about America's trade with more than 60 countries. The reports btw are for the year 2003 only so all the figures I will mention are for one year ONLY.
So who is on the list? Everybody, as far as I can see. China to Russia to Japan to most of South America, the Arab States, the European Union and Canada. Even little countries like Cote D'Ivoire, Bolivia and Vietnam are included. I thought I'd take a peek through it just to see how incredibly bad the US is at getting its goods into foreign markets. Jeez, who is NOT on this list?
Come on, a trade deficit with Bolivia?? Per capita income is about 200 bucks a month. And yet we've got a 3 million dollar trade deficit with landlocked Bolivia.
Of course the real big one is China: the United States of America had a trade deficit of 124 billion in 2003. That's four dollars per every soul in the land. Of course it seems like every other manufactured household item is made in China these days.
But what about Vietnam? Trade deficit of 3.2 billion. Didn't the US fight a war over there? Effectively, the people of the United States are financing 3.2 billion dollars a year to the people of Vietnam. A strange way to make war reparations, eh?
How about new NATO member and Bush sympathizer Romania? US is financing the people of Romania to the tune of 363 million dollars a year. Of course in 2002 it was 447 million.
How about the ultrapoor nation of Angola? Wracked by civil war and genocide for years.... the current trade deficit with Angola is 3.8 billion dollars. 3.8 billion dollars?? Calm down. The US is in debt to Angola because it is buying its OIL. This is getting too depressing. Let's have a look at some other countries, big and small:
Colombia: Deficit of 2.6 billion dollars
Chile: Deficit of 984 million dollars
Dominican Republic: Deficit of 242 million dollars
Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire): Deficit of 387 million dollars
European Union: Deficit of 94.3 billion dollars
Hungary: Deficit of 1.8 billion dollars
Kazakhstan: Deficit of 224 million dollars
Nicaragua: Deficit of 266 million dollars
Pakistan: Deficit of 1.7 billion dollars
Peru: Deficit of 700 million dollars
Sri Lanka: Deficit of 1.7 billion dollars
Venezuela: Deficit 14.3 billion dollars
Total USA trade deficit on all named countries in this Diary: over 250 billion dollars.
Read the entire report by clicking here if you dare (pdf file HUGE).
All in all, this report is just another brick in the wall of evidence that President Bush is the worst leader this economy has had in a long, long time.
Peace
-Soj