Exporting food and importing durable goods is what the revolutionary war was fought to stop. You would have been hung as a Tory in 1776.
It fascinates me that both you and central_va referred to me as a traitor. Both of you obviously didn’t get the objective of my post or are not seeing the big picture.
There are many ways to keep the peace. One way is diplomacy where all work together, one is war where no one works together, and one is control of them financially and/or naturally where one is dominant.
I initially talked about the petroleum trading. We export more petroleum than anyone in the world. We are also the largest importer in the world. Ever wonder why? Because it’s good business. Some have said the war in the middle east was for the oil. If that’s the case, why do we only import 2% of our oil from there and our three biggest importers to us are Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, in that order? We buy 2% of our oil to follow the oil for food program for Iraq developed by the UN and that has leaked over into our trade work with others in the middle east. We have plenty of oil, but it’s good business for them to sell theirs to us so they can feed themselves and give us deals on some of our other imports we get from them. It’s just business.
Why do stores say if you buy 1, you get the other at half price or even free? It’s good business as they can sell you other things when you come into the store some at cut prices others at probably too high. But everyone eats and does not have to go looking for food in the next country. It stops wars. Ones we can stay out of. We don’t intimidate anymore. We have to use other means. Trade is one of them. And sanctions are part of them for the domination that might not lead to the war we don’t want.
rwood