The Growing Importance of International Trade Panel (a) illustrates the fact that over the past 50 years, the United States has exported a steadily growing share of its GDP to other countries and imported a growing share of what it consumes. Panel (b) demonstrates that international trade is significantly more important to many other countries than it is to the United States, with the exception of Japan. Sources: Bureau of Economic Analysis [panel (a)] and World Development Indicators [panel (b)].