The Washington Post editors are such huge proponents of U.S. trade policy that they are willing to make up numbers to support their case, famously telling readers last year that Mexico's GDP had quadrupled since 1988 in order to back up their case for NAFTA. (The actual growth figure is 83 percent, according to the IMF.) Today, they printed a column by Fred Bergsten arguing that trade is helping the economy stay out of a recession. While the growth in net exports has been hugely important in sustaining growth in the last three quarters, almost as much as this growth has been attributable to reduced imports as increased exports. In other words, less trade, in the form of fewer imports, has been one of the main factors propelling growth over the last three quarters. Somehow Mr. Bergsten neglected to mention this fact.
--Dean Baker
