Merrill slår hul på den amerikanske myte, at handelen har stor betydning, og at det er vigtigt for USA at føre handelskrig over for Kina. For de store multinationale selskaber, MNCs, betyder eksport fra USA betydeligt mindre end selskabernes produktion og salg på deres lokale markeder. Derfor er det forfejlet at gå imod globaliseringen. I 2019 var den samlede amerikanske eksport på 2500 milliarder dollar, mens salget fra selskabernes lokale produktion var på 6800 milliarder dollar. Tallene er helt ekstreme i forhold til Kina for flere selskaber. USA eksporterede laptops og mobiltelefoner for 4 milliarder dollar i 2018 til Kina, men alene Apples salg i Kina fra sin egen produktion i Kina var på 52 milliarder dollar. Samme år eksporterede USA for 209 millioner dollar tøj og fodtøj, mens Nike solgte for 5,1 milliarder dollar i Kina fra sin egen produktion i Kina. Merrill har en barsk konklusion: Handelsstatistikken er i virkeligheden ubrugelig, når man skal vurdere den globale produktion og handel, og statistikken er farlig for politikerne, der ikke forstår virkeligheden. Dårlig data skaber dårlig politik.
Corporate America and Globalization
Despite all the chatter around deglobalization, reshoring of production and U.S.-centric
supply chains, Corporate America remains very much wedded to the concept of
globalization, and for good reasons. The U.S. economy accounts for less than one-quarter
of global output and not even 5% of the global population. Translation: There’s a great
deal of earnings potential outside the U.S. and a tremendous amount of non-U.S.
resources to be leveraged for growth. Being domestic takes you only so far.
U.S. foreign affiliate sales, not trade, is the benchmark of U.S. global commerce.
Bilateral trade flows don’t even begin to tell the story of U.S. global engagement. MNCs
compete more via affiliate sales than trade because they have to—global success requires
firms to be local (investment) rather than arms-length (trade).
In 2019, the last year of
available data, U.S. foreign affiliate sales totaled $6.8 trillion, while U.S. exports (goods and
services) totaled $2.5 trillion, less than 40% of affiliate sales. For a granular visual on this
dynamic, see Exhibit 1.
According to official trade data, China imports from the U.S. of
laptops and mobile phones totaled $4 billion in 2018, which doesn’t even begin to square
with Apple’s reported sales of $52 billion in China the same year. Along a similar vein (but
not shown) Nike posted sales of $5.13 billion in China in 2018, light years ahead of
reported China apparel and footwear imports for the same year ($209 million).
The upshot:
Conventional trade statistics are virtually useless in gauging global commerce—they are
also dangerous in that they are used by legislators and policy makers to craft policies
(trade restrictions against China, for instance). The risk: Bad data begets bad policies.
