United States trade balance

Except for two countries, there is very fitde world trade in lime. The largest importer is the Netherlands, which is nearly devoid of limestone and thus imports about 10 t aimually from Belgium and Germany. The other net importer of consequence is the United States, which imports ca 150, 000 t/yr or about 1% of U.S. production. About 85% of the U.S. imports are from Canada the balance is from Mexico. 

A reexamination of so-called renewabdity has shown that advantages for oleochemicals are not sufftcientiy clear (115), especially because manufacture of surfactants ia the United States accounts for only 0.03% of aimual cmde oil consumption (62). On these bases, the primary determinants of surfactant choice will continue to be cost effectiveness and availability. The 1993 U.S. market has been estimated to be worth 3.7 x 10 (110). Approximately one-half was anionic surfactant ( 1.8 x 10 ) and one-third nonionic surfactant ( 1.2 x 10 ). The balance was made up by cationics ( 1.2 X 10 ) and amphoterics ( 600 x 10 ). The U.S. International Trade Commission (116) provides a minutely detailed breakdown of surfactant production. 

United States benzene trade data are shown in Table 7. From 1961 to 1970, the United States was a net exporter of benzene. After 1971, following a rapid growth of foreign benzene production, the amount of inexpensive benzene available from overseas sources brought the trade balance back to net imports. The trade balance was expected to fluctuate and a net import balance of 3.3ndash4.3 x 10 t (100—130 million gallons) was anticipated for 1990 (64). 

The production of chlorobenzenes in Eastern Europe is concentrated in the former Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The estimated capacity is 200—250 thousand metric tons the former Soviet Union has most (230 thousand tons) of this capacity. There is trade between Eastern and Western Europe on monochlorobenzene and the dichlorobenzenes, but the net trade balance is probably even at about 20 thousand metric tons. Eastern Europe exported 20 thousand metric tons of monochlorobenzene principally to Germany, Erance, and the United States. 

Trade patterns for chemical products differ markedly from those of overall trade. Countries like China and Taiwan, for example, which have large surpluses in their overall trade accounts, have sizeable deficits in their trade in chemicals. The United States and Britain, on the other hand, have large trade deficits overall, but trade surpluses, or at least somewhat balanced trade flows in chemicals. 

The United States has usually maintained a net export balance for alkylamines, but the trade surplus for methylamines has eroded since the mid-1980 s as a result of increasing imports of methylamines from Canada. Exports of methylamines reached a peak of 34 million pounds in 1993 and then fell to 8 million pounds in 2002 as overseas capacity has grown. The 1999 trade balance for methylamines is one of net imports116. 

In foreign trade, the chemical industry of the United States has consistently performed in an outstanding manner. While the overall balance of trade has been negative, the chemical industry has been one of the truly strong sectors in the economy of the United States, Table 2.4. Year after year, the trade balance of chemicals has been positive and thus has had... 

For tallow, although industry identifies and trades in many grades of raw material, cumulative production and use data are listed in terms of only edible vs. nonedible tallow, at best. The United States accounts for approximately half of the annual world production of tallow, with the balance coming primarily from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, and Brazil. In the United States, the production of inedible tallow typically is slightly more than double that of edible tallow. Thus, in the year 2000, the U.S. inedible tallow production was 1.7 million metric tons, and edible tallow production was estimated at 0.76 million metric tons (59). In the year 2000, estimated lard production, for use mostly in cooking, was estimated at... 

With respect to imports, Germany imports a greater dollar volume than the United States. The dollar value of the U.S. chemical trade with specific countries is presented in Table 9.6. In 1995 the chemical balance of trade with Australia, Latin America, Africa, and Asia (with the exception of Japan and China) was greater than 4 1. With the more highly industrialized nations, like Canada, the... 

The United States is today a net importer of high-technology products. Its trade balance in high-technology manufactured goods shifted from plus 54 billion in 1990 to negative 50 billion in 2001. 

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