J. Bradford Jensen: “Trump likes to talk about steel and manufactured goods. America’s better trade hope may lie in exported services” (LA Times)

Los Angeles Times

Exports account for just 4% of the sales of U.S. services that are tradeable, compared with about 20% of American manufactured goods, said J. Bradford Jensen, a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a leading expert on services trade. And while 1 out of 4 U.S. manufacturers export, only 5% of businesses that provide exportable services do so. “I don’t think anyone disputes that the United States has globally competitive service firms — finance, insurance, the Internet, Hollywood, music, architects, engineers, R&D scientists — all that stuff, we’re as good as they come,” Jensen said. “And yet we’re not exporting a lot of that to countries that need them, like China and India.”