That seems to put US foreign trade in perspective. Harper's fails to mention the source of this number. But the authoritative Statistical Abstract shows the former Soviet countries taken as a whole received approximately the same amount as sub-Saharan Africa. That seems to imply that the post-Cold War world is less warlike or at least that now conflict is less serious. A good factoid should make you think, but without context, you don't know what to think.
Factoids then take on some semblance of meaning.