On February 11, 2013, Phillip Inman writes in The Guardian:
China has become the world’s biggest trading nation in goods, ending ending the post-war dominance of the U.S., according to official figures.
China’s customs administration said the combined total for imports and exports in Chinese goods reached $3.87tn (£2.4tn) in 2012, edging past the $3.82tn trade in goods registed by the US commerce department.
The landmark total for Chinese trade indicates the extent of Beijing’s dependence on the rest of the world to generate jobs and income compared with a US economy that remains twice the size, and more self-contained. The US economy is worth $15tn compared with the $7.3tn Chinese economy.
The U.S. not only has a large internal market for goods, but also dominates the trade in services. US total trade amounted to $4.93tn in 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) with a surplus of $195.3bn.
But like most western nations, the U.S. deficit in the trade of goods weighs heavily and is only expected to get larger.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/11/china-worlds-largest-trading-nation
