The final section of the paper provides sources of additional information, most available via the internet. Services are what most Americans do for a living. U.S. services compete successfully worldwide.
Services are critically important to an efficient economy.
Services also include the important activities related to travel and tourism, as well as royalty and licensing transactions. Taken together, these account for 52 percent of U.S. cross-border services exports. Both forms of trade are significant to the balance of payments and U.S. competitiveness. These categories are used to more precisely capture the manner in which services are provided and thereby facilitate the process of identifying and subsequently disciplining restrictions to services trade. The customer travels from abroad to the service provider's country to receive a service, e.g., an individual from Venezuela travels to Miami to receive medical treatment - this corresponds to the GATS mode of consumption abroad and results in a U.S. export of healthcare services.