Services and global trade

Michael Cox, an econ prof at SMU's b-school, has a stimulating NYT op-ed today on the role of services in global trade. All too many discussions of our trade deficit focus on goods (including the President's call to "export more of our goods" in his State of the Union speech), where we do indeed run quite a deficit. However, the US runs a substantial trade surplus on traded services, especially travel, education, media, consulting, and finance. Cox argues that these are the sectors where the US is likely to have the greatest success in opening up new export opportunities.