United States’ World Position Remains Tops
I enjoyed “Global Quest for Cash” (July 3) on the (un)availability of capital. But the article makes the situation sound more hopeless than it is.
It is media policy to place the United States as a second-rate military, financial and political power. Statistics do not bear out this portrayal. Our size and strength remain unequaled.
Underlying Mr. Petruno’s thesis is the idea that the United States is helpless, particularly against the Asians. However, the Asians are penniless if they can’t sell to the Americans. See our trade deficits with almost all Southeast Asian countries.
If we use hence-untried simple diplomatic and political means to acquire trade surpluses with Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, the United States may once again be the world’s greatest creditor nation.
If the markets are so interested in investment in the high-risk, high-return developing countries, why not Mexico and India? Why Southeast Asia to the exclusion of Southern Africa and Eastern Europe? These and similar questions are left unanswered.
DIANE FORVE
Los Angeles
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