rustywalker82 said:Is the info on this American portal actually accurate regarding the total goods exchange and the services exchange by country?
Based on this, we (in the US) are pretty much at the bottom of the list for the drop in exports and imports since 2008.
In the EU, Greece is doing almost the best (their goods exports are up 19%, while for example Germany is seeing an 8% drop).
Maybe 2008 isn't the best benchmark to use (since Greece had a disastrous trade balance back then while Germany was killing it), so maybe the data looks a bit wonky?
And how on earth did our service exports jump by 417% during that same timeframe?
The data is almost certainly accurate, primarily because the source appears to be the WTO. As you noted, using the 2008-2012 window isn't exactly a fair way to judge the performance of individual nations or their specific International Trade policies. Why? Because we all know that was the height of the crisis, and different countries felt the impact at wildly different times; furthermore, the recovery didn't kick in simultaneously everywhere. International Trade was undoubtedly one of the main channels through which the crisis spread, so countries whose primary trading partners were hit hardest naturally saw the most dramatic export collapses. Ultimately, everything is relative and depends on a multitude of variables, which means you need a much deeper level of analysis to reach any concrete conclusions about the "why" and the "how."
Regarding services, from what I can see, the index stands at 417.7%, which implies that compared to 2008, service exports have actually grown by 317.7%. Why exactly? I haven't the slightest clue, but regardless, it is 👍 !! My own subjective hunch is that the lion's share of that growth is tied to tourism. If we factor in the crisis again, I suspect a massive wave of European travelers decided to vacation within Europe rather than traveling "somewhere far away," and since you happen to have the most beautiful coastline (yet another purely subjective opinion of mine 😁 ), I'll let you draw your own conclusion... 🙂