There has been heated debate over whether or not the United States should implement stricter regulations on foreign trade. The diagram shows the percentage of each state's GDP that comes from international trade, Michigan having the highest. The current administration has been proposing stricter trade restrictions on its largest trading partners China, Mexico and Canada. This map gives us an indication of what states would be most affected by this decision. Should trade regulations vary by state depending on how dependent that state's economy is on it, or should the U.S. work on making states more self-sufficient?
Source: http://ritholtz.com/2017/04/reliant-u-s-state-foreign-trade/
It is hard to force a state to be more 'self sufficient'. While some things can be done to improve this, at some point natural resources certainly play a major role.
ReplyDeleteBecoming more reliant on domestic trade (across to state border) is definitely something that could curb the reliance on international trade. However, this will most likely result in increases in the price of a basket of goods.
I think that this map shows very clearly that federal restrictions on trade will not affect everyone equally. I agree with Nick that making states more self sufficient would be a difficult task, and perhaps it is necessary for regulations to vary by state.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see that states that went red during the presidential election are among the ones with high share of trade in their total GDP. While I like Nick's idea of increasing trade across states, I would be interested to see whether the states with darker blue shades have a net trade of exports or imports. Obtaining goods from other states would work if it is net imports, but if a state's economy relies on exporting their goods...becoming more self-sufficient or heavier trade restrictions might cause a bigger problem.
ReplyDeleteI think that the way trade is set up now i.e. some states' economies are more dependent on trade activity than others, there's no one-size-fits-all formula for trade regulation. Also, the demographics and industries in each state are different, so the consequences of imposing blanket regulations on each population would differ as well. I think that requirements should be tailored to the needs of each economy.
ReplyDeleteI just realized from this graph, most of the coastal states depend on trade the most.
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