A Number of Numbers to Consider

For better or worse, the U.S. economy is at or near the top in a number of international rankings:

• No. 1 in economic output, called gross domestic product, amounting to $13.13 trillion in 2006. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, at about 302 million, the United States accounts, by different measures, for between 20 and 30 percent of world GDP. The GDP of just one state, California, amounting to $1.5 trillion in 2006, exceeded the GDP in all but about eight countries that year.
• No. 1 in total imports, some $2.2 trillion in 2006, about twice that for the country with the next highest level, Germany.
• No. 2 in exports of goods, $1 trillion in 2006, behind only Germany, although China is predicted to surpass the United States in 2007. No. 1 in exports of services, $422 billion in 2006.

• No. 1 trade deficit, $758.5 billion in 2006, many times that of any other country.
• No. 2 in maritime container traffic in 2006, behind only China.
• No. 1 in external debt, estimated at more than $10 trillion mid-2006.
• No. 1 destination for foreign investment, an inflow of more than $1.5 trillion in 2006.
• No. 1 for inflow of foreign direct investment—businesses and real estate—about $177.3 billion in 2006. No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment by the world's 100 biggest multinational corporations, including corporations from developing countries.
• No. 5 in holdings of reserve assets in 2005 at $188.3 billion, 4 percent of the world's share, behind Japan and China (each with 18 percent), Taiwan and South Korea, and just ahead of Russia. No. 15 in reserves of foreign exchange and gold, about $69 billion in mid-2006.
• No. 1 source of remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean, about three-fourths of the total $62 billion in 2006, from people who migrated out of those regions to find work abroad.
• No. 1 in petroleum consumption, about 20.6 million barrels a day in 2006, and No. 1 in crude oil imports, more than 10 million barrels a day.
• No. 3 in ease of doing business in 2007, after Singapore and New Zealand.
• No. 20 of 163, tied with Belgium and Chile, in Transparency International's 2006 index measuring perceptions about corruption (lowest-numbered economies are viewed as least corrupt).

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