It is usual for the U. S. to have a favorable balance of trade—i.e., to export more goods than it imports. In the first quarter of 1937. however, because of the 1936 drought there were unusually large imports of agricultural goods which gave the U. S. an unfavorable trade balance of $113,959,000. Last year there was no drought and therefore U. S. trade figures for the first quarter of 1938, released last week by the Department of Commerce, again recorded ...

Apple's long-awaited white iPhone 4, which hit stores April 28, is expected to be another smash for Steve Jobs. But how much will it benefit the American economy? Though invented in the U.S., the iPhone is manufactured in China, so, ironically, iPhones sold in the U.S. add to the trade deficit with the Middle Kingdom. Yet China contributes almost nothing to the value of an iPhone; it does little more than assemble parts from elsewhere. A host of other countries, ...

THE ATTACKS of Sept. 11, 2001, sent religious people all over the world to their knees in prayer. Just 48 hours after the World Trade Center collapsed, a former altar boy from a poor Catholic family in Iowa found himself praying in private with Pope John Paul II. James Nicholson — tapped by President George W. Bush as the new Administration's ambassador to the Vatican — went ahead with a prescheduled Sept. 13, 2001, audience with the Pope to present ...

One of the most familiar of all trade names was booked for a major operation last week. The Federal Trade Commission told the manufacturers of Carter's Little Liver Pills to cut the word "liver" out of the product name. The tiny, white-coated globules, FTC found, are an irritative laxative , and have no medicinal effect on the liver. The FTC had spent several years, and undertaken a great deal of medical research in reaching its decision. Even now, his liver ...

Ever since the "white lobsters" started washing up on Nicaragua's Caribbean shore a decade ago, life for some people on this isolated and impoverished coast has become remarkably more affluent and globalized, with new mansions, speedboats and lucrative businesses dealing in international trade. Indigenous communities once neglected and marginalized by the state now have to option to self-finance their own development. It looks at first glance like a rare Central American success story — but in ...

Snow still caps the fir-covered mountains of southwest Oregon despite the warm spring sun that has lured burly loggers from their hibernation and drawn orchardmen back to their pear trees. In this lovely, sparsely populated land, dark green trees provide jobs and profits. But among the budding fruit boughs of the Rogue River Valley and in isolated clearings hacked deep in the quiet cedar and pine forests, new patches of a distinctly lighter green are flourishing this spring. Like pears ...

China and the US resolved several thorny trade disputes on Thursday even as Beijing confirmed it was investigating potential dumping of US-made cars in the Chinese market.

The beginning of the World Cup in South Africa next June kicks-off a festival of football on the pitch, but there are a wealth of issues for the host country to tackle off the field too. Up to half-a-million fans are expected to visit for the tournament and a string of sparkling new stadiums and hotels have sprung up to accommodate them. But that influx of supporters also brings with it a danger of an explosion in the sex trade ...

Akil Vohra quit a lucrative job in international trade litigation to take up something he strongly believes in -- as a legal expert, a Muslim and, most importantly, he says, as an American.

President Obama slowly walked across the grounds of Cape Coast Castle, a slave outpost in Ghana where hundreds of thousands of Africans were shipped as human cargo to a life of bondage in the United States, South America and the Caribbean. "You almost feel as if the walls can speak. You try to project yourself into these incredibly harrowing moments," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper. When the president reached the "Door of No Return," an arched gateway with thick doors ...