U.S. Trade Leadership Has Been Absent Over a Decade

Real export growth was basically nonexistent in 2015 and 2016. In fact, exports actually declined by 0.3 percent last year – the first decline since the recession – after barely inching forward by 0.4 percent in 2015. While an assortment of factors come into play here – in particular, slow growth among our trading partners – it should not be ignored that the U.S. has been absent on the world stage in terms of advancing free trade for more than a decade now.