Data on Correlates of Free-Trade Agreements
/Extracted 05OCT2011 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-trade-is-the-solution-not-the-pro...
The facts on free-trade agreements are readily available from government economists on the International Trade Administration’s Web site. Tables on the site report the manufactured goods trade balance with our free-trade partners and show a trade surplus last year of more than $23 billion. So far this year, the surplus is larger than $25 billion.
In fact, over the past three years, manufacturers in the United States have accumulated a trade surplus with free-trade partners in excess of $70 billion. During that time, our manufactured goods trade with countries that have not entered into free-trade agreements with us — i.e., that have not opened their markets to us fully — was in deficit by nearly $1.3 trillion.