Day one of Accounting 101 at UW Milwaukee (a very long time ago) the professor told the following joke: Three accountants are interviewing for an entry level position at a Wisconsin company. The CFO asks the first candidate, “What’s one plus one?” The candidate responds, “Two.” The CFO shows them the door and says, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Candidate number two is asked the identical question which results in the same response and outcome.

Finally, candidate three is asked, “What’s one plus one?” Leaning forward in her chair, speaking in a low voice she responds, "...

An estimated $6.6 trillion a day changes hands in the foreign exchange market. The turnover in a week covers world trade for a year and is around a third larger than the dollar value of this year’s US GDP.  As you would expect, large impersonal forces drive the dollar’s exchange rate.  The contest to determine the occupant of the White House understandably draws much interest, but the drivers the foreign exchange market are larger and broader. Regardless of the outcome of the US election, we expect the dollar...

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act allows the President to impose tariffs on imports into the United States if the US Secretary of Commerce feels that import volumes of the item impact the national security – excessive imports of an item with little domestic production would make it difficult for the country to be self-sufficient if the item was needed to fight conflicts or for warfare.  

The premise of the law is that it attempts to regenerate domestic production of certain items or...

Surprisingly, many “trade” resources and programs don’t require that a company be an exporter at all. A federal program available to any US company (including non-exporters) is Trade Adjustment Assistance which I’ll discuss later on. An indirect exporter, whose products end up in an OEM’s finished good that is later exported, can take advantage of Duty Drawbacks, Foreign Trade Zones and IC-DISC to name a few...

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