The US may be substantially more formidable as an international trade partner than has been realized. A new set of agreements and metrics shows that its disadvantage may have been overstated. And it is certainly a major participant in international value added supply chains. A New View of International Trade – Supply Chain 24/7.
This ‘network effect’ has probably been under-appreciated. I’ve been working on some research in the domestic market to identify network structures in trade chain data, and assess their impact. I bet the same sort of research could show us something about trade between countries.
Supply Chain and Logistics 