>In Germany, 40-45% of GDP is exports . . . In the U.S., it's just 10-11% The contrast is even more stark than those numbers suggest because while the US is ba

>In Germany, 40-45% of GDP is exports . . . In the U.S., it's just 10-11% The contrast is even more stark than those numbers suggest because while the US is basically self-sufficient in petroleum these days, it imports and exports a lot of crude because US refineries are good at refining heavy crude and sour crude, which other countries struggle to refine. The crude produced in the US is the easy-to-refine non-heavy non-sour stuff so it exports some of that and imports an approximately equal amount of difficult-to-refine stuff because that way US refineries can take advantage of their comparative expertise to make a little money. The point is that it would be easy for US refineries to switch entirely to US-produced crude as their supply, and if they did that, that 10-11% figure would go down a lot. The reason people tend to think that international trade is important to the US economy is that during the Cold War, Washington used the ability to trade with the US as a carrot to tempt countries into allying with the US against the USSR. But the main motivation for the US to do that was not to enrich Americans but rather to increase the (long-term) military security of Americans.