WHY DO NATIONS IMPORT?

Basic Questions: Shouldn't a rich country such as Venezuela produce all of the computers, television sets,
automobiles, cameras, and VCRs it wants rather than import such products from Japan, USA, and other countries?

Answers: Yet no country today, including the United States can be totally self-sufficient without suffering a high cost.
All countries need to import at least some goods and services for the following reasons:

1. Goods or services that are either essential to economic well-being or that consumers desire are not
naturally available or cannot be produced at home.

2. Goods or services that satisfy domestic needs or wants can be produced more efficiently by other
countries, and therefore sold at lower prices.

It’s important to know...

One of the most imported products worldwide is oil. Venezuela is one of the biggest exporters of this natural resource.
Venezuelan oil is bought by countries like USA, France, Brazil, Spain, etc.

Other stuff...
• Nations import everything that cannot produce for themselves, and the articules that other peoples
the offer in a better position than his own industry.

• US has imported up to 15% of oil fron Venezuela

EXAMPLE:

The United States cannot now meet its oil consumption needs exclusively through domestically produced oil; as of
2008, the U.S. ranks third in total oil production (8,514,000 barrels/day), but also first in oil consumption (19,500,000
barrels/day).1 As a result, the United States imported 57 percent of the oil it consumed in 2008.2 Most of these
imports come from Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Canada, Nigeria, and Venezuela. In 2008, the United States imported 3.58
billion barrels of crude oil.3

The United States could, in theory, abandon foreign oil imports, but it would be a costly decision because it is not
clear that domestic reserves of oil, both those that are known and those that have yet to be discovered, could satisfy
current domestic demand.

In the end, it is clear that the United States will depend upon imports to meet its energy needs into the foreseeable
future. This is not the same as saying that the United States has no choice but to import oil from other countries. As
the preceding discussion suggests, there are alternatives. But those alternatives are less economically and politically
feasible than simply continuing to import oil from countries endowed with generous petroleum reserves.

Moreover, the United States and other nations choose to import many other products that, unlike oil, are not
economically essential, but differ in quality or features from equivalent products made at home. One prominent
example is foreign-made cars, which, starting in 2007, accounted for more than 50 percent of all cars sold in the
United States.5

Americans do not buy imported foreign cars because foreign manufacturers produce certain kinds of vehicles that
American manufacturers do not; U.S. carmakers produce an extraordinary variety of vehicles at a wide range of price
levels. But many Americans have concluded that Asian and European car manufacturers produce vehicles with a
combination of qualities or features that satisfy their preferences more so than vehicles manufactured by U.S.
carmakers.

It is worth noting that the country where a good is produced need not be the same as the country where the
corporation that manufactures and sells the good is established. Several American clothing companies, such as Gap,
manufacture most of their clothes in developing countries.