This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 16, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown.

Bilateral trade agreements are left in Congress without a vote.

And there is a large lurch toward protectionist rhetoric there.

It might leave you thinking that free trade has entered a time in the wilderness, but not all

news on trade this year is bad.

So says Dan Eikinson, Associate Director of the Cato Institute's

Center for Trade Policy Studies.

We've been in the midst of an economic slowdown for the better part of a year perhaps more. Usually when there's an economic

slowdown in the United States, trade gets the blame. We've got to blame those foreigners

for lost jobs and for a contracting economy, but in this case exports have been setting all sorts of

records. U.S. manufacturers are exporting to new markets. Exports are increased something like 18% in 2008 over 2007.

And it's not just your typical states that are doing the exporting.

It's states with politicians who typically rail against trade

that are doing well.

Also, North Dakota set records with respect to exports to Canada.

Ohio, a state that is often associated with anti-trade fervor,

is doing very well with exports to Mexico, our NAFTA partner. Even Michigan,

other manufacturing states are doing particularly well. That reflects the fact that

the U.S. economy has been slowing, that the US economy has been slowing whereas the world economy has been growing but I don't think that that's necessarily

Going to be the case going forward for the next for the next year or two at least that's what the economic projections are.

How does the weak US dollar play into this?

The weak US dollar does tend to make it easier to export and it makes

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