Again, I really don't feel qualified to weigh in on most of these matters, though I will say that I generally do prefer direct citations if you'd like me to take the epistemic credibility of a claim more seriously than any other thing someone on the internet said (in other words, saying "go look it up" provides no more additional credibility than simply making the statement, and is thus kind of pointless, and in fact you take a not insignificant epistemic credibility hit for my purposes by suggesting that asking an LLM for factual information should be taken as a reliable source)
That said, it's interesting to see how the supply shocks of a global pandemic can shift these kinds of relationships. It doesn't surprise me that Mexico, being a huge source of food for the US, is the largest exporter to it. What I do wonder is how much exports pertain to manufacturing relationships. Like in the case of Mexico -> US, I think we wouldn't count e.g. stuff we buy for the produce section to be manufactured goods, but that would still count toward import/export numbers. Does this apply to other things too? Do things like IP count?
That said, it's interesting to see how the supply shocks of a global pandemic can shift these kinds of relationships. It doesn't surprise me that Mexico, being a huge source of food for the US, is the largest exporter to it. What I do wonder is how much exports pertain to manufacturing relationships. Like in the case of Mexico -> US, I think we wouldn't count e.g. stuff we buy for the produce section to be manufactured goods, but that would still count toward import/export numbers. Does this apply to other things too? Do things like IP count?