Via the World Bank:
The share of US economic activity coming from trade is about half of what it is for the rest of the world. Note that I think prior to World War 1 this was not at all the case. Do we see a rise in anti-trade Trumpism/Hillaryism around the world too?
Note that I still think this chart is extremely misleading. I won’t tell you why at the moment.
How does the US compare to the developed world, say the rest of the OECD?
I’ve enjoyed looking at US trade figures to China: https://www.usitc.gov/research_and_analysis/trade_shifts_2014/china.htm
A few surprises: US car exports to China are huge; agriculture is too; US imports of “electronic products” from China surpass the value of US total exports to China.
“The Great Illusion,” by Norman Angell, argued that war was impossible because countries were too economically dependent on each other. It was published in 1909.
It’s share of trade is lower basically because the US itself is very large and diverse. I hadn’t looked at an aggregated Europe, I would bet it would be similar to US.
Even if as a share of gdp the us is less dependent on imports, the aggregate consumer surplus from international trade I imagine is greater in the US than any other individual country
