Understanding the Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on U.S. SMEs' Trade Exports to BRIC

The global economy offers vast trade opportunities for U.S. businesses. United States’ SMEs are grossly under-represented in the global market. It is essential that U.S. SMEs adopt a global approach by expanding trade focus to include the emerging BRIC markets. Demographics and increasing purchasing power in the emerging countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) offer significant trade potential for U.S. SMEs export expansion. However, there are external and internal barriers to expanding beyond the NAFTA region. Free trade agreements reduce trade barriers, while creating opportunities for U.S. exports. Although US SMEs face their own set of challenges to expanding internationally, BRIC markets remain vigorous in spite of the world economic crisis. The paper describes SME trade activity and contributions to jobs, innovation and U.S. economic growth. Further it describes specific trade barriers to each of the BRIC countries, investors’ perceptions of BRIC’s stability and ability to partner with US companies and the industry sectors that have the most potential for US trade expansion to BRIC.