Multiple news outlets are reporting that China overtook Germany to become the world’s largest exporter in 2009.  However, several of those reports fail to indicate they’re talking about merchandise trade, which is mostly manufactured goods but also includes petroleum, raw materials, and so on.  These numbers do not cover exports of commercial services, an area of great strength for the United States, but an area where data are made available less rapidly.

Consider the complete numbers for 2008 from the World Trade Organization (WTO), specifically, from its World Trade Report 2008 issued in July 2009.  This source offers globally comparable data, and it shows the United States was the world’s largest exporter of goods and services in 2008:

Around the globe, trade in services did not decline as sharply as merchandise trade in the recent recession, which is great news for America’s globally competitive service providers.  When the full range of data come out later this year, they will most likely show that the United States retained its position as the world’s largest exporter of goods and services in 2009.