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We aren't leveraging this great economic engine, the strongest economy in the world. And yet we have this totally weak response. We import $500 billion a year more in products than we export.

Foreign trade clearly holds down the cost of products we buy.

Although 95 percent of the world's market for products exists outside the U.S., many small firms do not have the resources and personnel to take advantage of these opportunities.

Products made in China are cheap through the exploitation of the workforce. Every time we shop, we are driving the nail further into the coffin of American manufacturing jobs.

It's always been hard work for us to manufacture in the U.K. It's not a particularly profitable place for us.

The world has changed. It's not enough to simply buy American; we have to sell American, sell our products and goods and services throughout this world.

Old ideas of not trading because 'they won't open their markets to us' miss the entire point of allowing goods to be imported into the United States - because we want and need them and because someone here believes that the good or service received in exchange for our dollars creates value for them.

Instead of worrying about who's American and who's not, here's a better idea: Create incentives for any global company to do what we'd like it to do in the United States.

There are supply chains that exist in China and Asia now which the U.S. simply can't replicate.

Imports create competition and keep domestic industry more responsive to consumers. In the United States, we import everything consumers want. So why not pharmaceuticals?