Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Enlightening. Read This Book Before Voting. In this book, the most recent former Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States of America - the person who led the organization prior to the current Acting President - explains what trade is and why it is good for America in a mostly objective fashion. In his recommendations for future action, particularly in the last couple of chapters, he gets a bit blatantly partisan and thus lost a star (and arguably could have lost another one - it gets that blatant at times). But beyond that particular part of the book this is a genuinely amazing and even shocking look at just how prevalent trade is in the modern American marketplace and just how much so many of our various - and not always obvious - systems and towns rely on it. For example, apparently 100% of US Penicillin - the main base component of all antibiotics I am personally aware of - comes from... China. Pretty well the entire US higher education system is dependent upon... foreign students paying full tuition. And despite being a “Chinese product”, the Apple iPhone is only... 8% Chinese. So take the recommendations for future action with at least a fair amount of salt, but read the dang book - you need to know the basics here so that you can no longer be manipulated on this issue. Very much recommended.

This book publishes in January 2020 and I am writing this review on December 16, 2019. Obviously this is an Advance Review Copy. And while I hate having to say this because I treat all book reviews exactly the same, just so no one gets in trouble with any agencies let us be clear that this review is both freely given and my own uncoerced thoughts on the book.