Over the same period, imports of advanced technology products have been rising three times as fast as total merchandise imports. There is abundant evidence that this process of globalization of goods, services, capital, and technology has benefitted the United States. The U.S. is the world's largest exporter. One in six U.S. manufacturing jobs is devoted to exports, and export-related jobs pay wages that are approximately 19 percent above the U.S. average. From 1989 through 1993, four-fifths of the increase in U.S. domestic manufacturing production consisted of exports.
Imports provide new, better, or cheaper products and inputs to satisfy consumer and producer needs.
Top of Section Regions Are Forming Trade Blocs Buried beneath the globalization of international economic activity is potentially disturbing evidence of emerging regional preferences and exclusivities. This was intended to avoid a repeat of the disastrous division of the world into trading blocs in the 1930s. In the 1980s, the trend has in fact been toward greater regionalism. The greatest intra-regional bias is in the APEC region, while the most rapid trend in this direction is in Europe. In conventional economic analysis, the globalization phenomenon yields positive-sum results.