Apparently, the prolonged slump continues to encourage smaller US businesses to look overseas for new markets, according to this article in the Wall Street Journal. It’s a great way to get a jump on the competition while taking advantage of the weakness of the dollar.

As everyone has figured out, the US economy is slumping. That means those with international operations are enjoying the “buffering” effect that sales in healthier economies (with more valuable currencies) bring. I’m enjoying that in my own business, on a small level, because my services have become a lot cheaper in the eyes of my European clients. DuPont, on the other hand, enjoyed those results in a really big way, to the tune of an 11% jump in sales, all on the strength of international sales.
Now, if the US economy continues to decline those foreign sales may drop as well. …read more

My mother is one of those people who likes to chat on airplanes. I am not, so those of you who sit down next to me on a long-haul flight are likely to be disappointed.
In any event, my mother has spoken with all sorts of people on airplanes, from Joey Bishop to the manager of a then-unknown Australian band named INXS. One of her most interesting chats, though, was with an exporter of sand. More peculiar, the gentleman in question was exporting sand to Saudi Arabia. It would seem to me that there’s more than enough sand in Saudi …read more

Since May is World Trade Month in the US, I’ll spend much of the month posting on – you guessed it – trade. While many posts will be from the US point of view, many of the resources can (and should) be adapted for exporters from other countries.
It is common knowledge that US companies lag woefully in exports as compared to their European and Asian counterparts. Part of this has to do with the sheer size of the US market and the federal system, which means laws differ from state to state. More on that some other day, but …read more