Exporting Trade Fallacies

Here's a letter to the Wall Street Journal:

Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade, Francisco Sanchez, boasts about the Obama administration's efforts to boost U.S. exports (Letters, July 24).

Alas, there's nothing special about exports – which is to say, there's nothing special about the geographic locations in which products are sold.  Economic activity serves the public interest best when competition drives firms to produce those outputs whose sales yield the highest profits. ...