Exports, Imports

A convention is usually an occasion upon which tycoons who are not orators deliver speeches prepared for them by secretaries who are not writers. This handicap, coupled with the further hazard that convention speeches are generally highly conventional, tends to throw the value of a convention upon the personal contacts established rather than upon the official business transacted. Thus it is somewhat questionable whether the Sixteenth National Foreign Trade Convention at Baltimore last week made any epochal advances in the solution of problems of foreign trade. Still many an Exporter met many an Importer; many sound, if not startling, pronouncements were made concerning international commerce; and everybody appeared to be agreed upon the fact that foreign trade was an exceedingly good thing and that there ought to be more of it.

The Convention opened with a few well Hoover-chosen words from Washington; then came many another greeting radioed from absent speakers in distant lands, on distant seas. During the long-distance conversations there was heard the loud popping of a champagne cork. No illegal pop was popped, however, as the report proceeded from the Berlin hotel of Ernst Filsinger, head of the Export Managers' Club of New York. Exporter Filsinger told the delegates that he was very sorry not to be in Baltimore with them. Then he made his champagne cork pop, thus testifying to the miracles of modern science and perhaps to the alleviating circumstances of his absence.

The Convention then settled down: to its speechmaking program. Principal open-ing day speech was delivered by Robert Patterson Lament, U. S. Secretary of Commerce. No stranger to foreign trade problems is Secretary Lamont, whose business experience includes terms of service with Armour, Dodge Bros., American Radiator and International Harvester. He waved no flags, cheered no cheers, said that growth was the normal condition of international trade, that the best formula for future success was a continuation of the same methods that have brought foreign trade to its present stature. Modest, he referred frequently to what experts had told him; most of the "experts" being his own subordinates. Thus quietly, unsensationally, the Hoover Administration and the man who is virtually Hoover-successor as Commerce Secretary made their first official contact with U. S. industry. What Convention delegates did not need to be told, what ordinary U. S. citizens are perhaps not so familiar with, is the fact that during 1928 exports totalled $5,129,000,000 and imports $4,091,000,000, leaving approximately a billion dollar excess of exports over imports. Exports increased about $263,000,000 during 1928, imports decreased about $94,000,000. There actually were more goods imported in 1928 than in 1927, but the dollar valuation was smaller, chiefly owing to price declines in silk, rubber and especially sugar. Exports. Leading U. S. export, by a wide margin, was unmanufactured cotton, of which almost a billion dollars worth was shipped. Then came petroleum and its products, automobiles and their parts, and machinery, all bunched around the half billion mark. These four leaders accounted for about half of the total 1928 exports. Wheat (including flour) held fifth place, but declined sharply during the year. Value of the ten leading exports (in millions of dollars) : Unmanufactured cotton . . . 920.0 Petroleum & products 525.5 Automobiles & accessories 500.2 Machinery 497.2 Wheat & flour 193.7 Packinghouse products 187.2 Iron & steel mill products . .179.7 Tobacco (unmanufactured) 154.5 Copper 169.8 Cotton manufactures 134.7 The automobile industry ranked high in the export of finished products, shipping $263,000,000 worth of passenger cars alone. Gasoline exports totalled $231,970,000. Imports. Except for cotton and tobacco U. S. exports were primarily manufactured articles; imports, however, were chiefly commodities in their natural state. Thus the four leading 1928 imports were raw silk, coffee, crude rubber, and cane sugar, these four making up more than one-fourth of total imports. Paper (newsprint), how ever, ranked fifth, more than four billion pounds of newsprint arriving to quench the U. S. thirst for sporting extras and Sunday editions. Testimony to U. S. prosperity was given by the importation of $57,100,000 in diamonds and $65,800,000 in art works. Of the four leaders, only coffee showed an increase, though price declines alone accounted for decreases in rubber and sugar. Silk decreased both in quantity and value. The ten leading 1928 imports were: Silk (raw) 368.0 Coffee 309.6 Rubber (crude) 244.9 Sugar (cane) 207.0 Paper 156.4 Hides & skins 150.8 Petroleum & products 132.8 Furs & mfgs 118.4 Paper (base stocks) 112.3 Copper 98.2

Customers. Best U. S. customer is Canada, which buys more goods from the U. S. and sells more to the U. S. than any other country. During 1928, Canada went into first place as best buyer of U. S. goods, passing the United Kingdom. The two together account for about one-third of all U. S. exports. Much of the grain exported to Canada is actually en route to the British Isles, however, which leaves Canada's leadership somewhat unstable. Exports to South America showed a general increase, Argentine buying almost 10% more U. S. merchandise in 1928 than in 1927. Increases both in Argentina and Brazil, also in Mexico, resulted chiefly from U. S. autos southern bound. Low sugar prices were reflected in declining exports to Cuba.

Exports to Germany showed considerable decrease, but large gains by France and Italy helped show a general addition in Continental purchasing power. Germany bought more automobiles, less wheat, cotton and flour; remained best Continental customer.

1928 exports to China were almost 50% greater than in 1927, China buying slightly more U. S. merchandise than Italy. Exports to Japan also expanded (12% over 1927), Japan outranking all the Continental countries except Germany. Chinese were enthusiastic buyers of leaf tobacco, cigarets and illuminating oil; Japan leaned toward cotton and automobiles.

Ten best 1928 customers (in millions of dollars):

Canada 916.2 United Kingdom 847.3 Germany 467.2 Japan 288.1 France 240.7 Argentina 178.9 China 165.2 Italy 162.1 Netherlands 142.3 Australia 141.3 Imports. Canada, largest purchaser of U. S. goods, was also the country for whose merchandise the most U. S. dollars were spent. Not the British Isles, however, but Japan attracted the next largest U. S. expenditure. Of the three countries; however, only imports from Canada showed an increase. Decline in silk prices accounted for the Japanese shrinkage, decline in tin prices for the British. Paper (newsprint) and copper were the Canadian products that chiefly swelled Canada's income. General was the decline in U. S. imports from Europe and Asia; general was the increase from South America. Germany showed the only major European increase, selling potash, sulphate of ammonia, hides, gloves and sulphite pulp in large quantities. Greece and Italy suffered from a decline in tobacco imports, France from decreases in silk and olive oil. The rise in coffee imports assured increased purchases from Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela, the two last also adding to their crude petroleum sales. Chile copper and Chile sodium nitrate accounted for the Chilean gain. Low prices for silk and rubber resulted in smaller purchases from all Oriental countries except India. The ten countries selling the most goods (millions of dollars) to the U. S. in 1928 were: Canada 489.0 Japan 384.3 United Kingdom 348.4 Germany 222.0 Brazil 220.7 British Malaya 204.3 Cuba 202.7 France 158.7 China 156.6 British India 148.9