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Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by XCSme on Saturday October 17, 2026 @03:12PM (#50134104)
I thought it was tokens
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by Aachen on Saturday October 17, 2026 @04:56PM (#50135055)
Would have thought advertising and transaction fees myself, but the article says it's usually oil (ok I should have thought of that), "pharmaceuticals" (mkay, seems cheaper to make elsewhere so that's a bit strange), or aircraft and their parts (wut? How many aircraft can the world need that it commonly tops the export chart of the wealthiest country?!)
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by michaelt on Saturday October 17, 2026 @07:14PM (#50136053)
> How many aircraft can the world need that it commonly tops the export chart of the wealthiest country?!

Consider how many American companies exclusively manufacture in the far east.

If a European buys a product "made by" Apple or nvidia or Nike or Levis - that's not an American export, it's an export of Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, or wherever. America still gets the profits, though.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by cpgxiii on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:11PM (#50135171)
> How many aircraft can the world need that it commonly tops the export chart of the wealthiest country?

Airliners and military aircraft are expensive. Consider that nearly the entire aircraft production capacity of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin as well as the engine production capacity of GE and P&W are booked for years to come. Also, unlike Airbus which has multiple final assembly plants across the world, Boeing only does final assembly in the US.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by throwaway2037 on Sunday October 18, 2026 @02:54AM (#50138554)
No, Boeing does final assembly in Zhoushan, China for 737s. Airbus does final assembly in EU (Hamburg, Toulouse), US (Alabama), Canada, and China (Tianjin).
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by cpgxiii on Sunday October 18, 2026 @11:19PM (#50147998)
The Zhoushan "Completion Center" is not an assembly line - it only handles interior fitment and exterior paint on aircraft that are otherwise fully assembled and have been flown from the production lines in Renton or Everett. The Airbus assembly lines outside the EU perform actual assembly of fuselage and wing components into complete aircraft.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by graemep on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:38PM (#50135388)
Because in-patent pharmaceuticals are a LOT more expensive than out of patent ones their monetary value is far greater than the greater volume of out of patent pharmaceuticals. If you look at where big pharma makes its revenues and their sales relative to generics sellers you can see this. Because of that the cost of making them is not really that important.

As for aircraft, not that many in number, but very expensive things with very expensive parts.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by JumpCrisscross on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:16PM (#50135221)
Goods versus services. We tend to use the word “exports” to refer to only the former in America, which is anachronistic.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by jjk166 on Saturday October 17, 2026 @10:04PM (#50137144)
A single airliner can be half a billion dollars. That's about 1/4000th of the US's total goods exported in a single item.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by MiroslavPokorny on Sunday October 18, 2026 @05:02AM (#50139289)
Boeing only assembles planes, they dont manufacture the components.

A lot of components are actually imports from other countries, eg Japan manufactures wings.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by jjk166 on Sunday October 18, 2026 @03:48PM (#50144710)
So? If you import $100 billion dollars of components and you do nothing to them before reselling abroad, you have $100 billion of exports.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by MiroslavPokorny on Sunday October 18, 2026 @09:17PM (#50147230)
WRONG - You have nothing, the import and exports cancel each other.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by IAmBroom on Tuesday October 20, 2026 @08:25AM (#50165304)
You are arguing about net cost/profit.

We don't export nor import "net" anything. The definition of exports is not affected by imports.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by XCSme on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:01PM (#50135087)
I mean, wouldn't that make sense given the market caps?

So many trillion-dollar valued AI-focused companies.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by WJW on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:48PM (#50135464)
It would make sense if the AI companies were rationally valued, yes. But they're not, so it's not.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by JumpCrisscross on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:15PM (#50135209)
I think those count as services. Gold is the most-exported good.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by XCSme on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:17PM (#50135232)
Title doesn't mention good specifically.

How are service exports counted? All together? Or not considered exports?

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by JumpCrisscross on Saturday October 17, 2026 @05:53PM (#50135487)
> Title doesn't mention good specifically

Literally the link in the first paragraph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IEAXGG.

It’s conventional, in American English, for exports unadorned to mean just goods. It’s anachronistic. But it isn’t wrong.

Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by jjk166 on Saturday October 17, 2026 @10:11PM (#50137183)
Anthropic's quarterly revenue is $16 billion. Assuming they are 40% of the ai market, pretend that all the ai market is american, and pretend all tokens are exclusively sold abroad, that would make AI tokens 7.3% of US exports, comparable to aircraft (7.5%). Of course in reality only a small portion of these tokens are american exports.
Re:Gold is now the top U.S. export by MobiusHorizons on Saturday October 17, 2026 @11:57PM (#50137791)
That really puts it in perspective in a nice way, thank you. These multiples really give a distorted sense of scale even when you know current production is not what is being valued