It is possible to increase exports by that much, but it certainly would not be politically popular; and I’m positive that no democrat would be willing to take the steps necessary to make it happen. The core approach would be to make credit more readily available to businesses and dramatically less available to consumers, which would shift most of the economic growth towards export driven industries at the expense of domestic spending. This would probably translate into an individual needing a 25% down payment on a home where they could only get a 25 year mortgage if they had excellent credit, car loans would skyrocket to nearly 10%, and most credit card debt would be beyond 20%. Beyond this there would need to be steps taken to make business more cost effective in the United States which would probably include dramatic cuts to social spending, and laws designed to reduce the power of unions.
Overall, this approach generally matches the approaches of Japan and South Korea through their meteoric rise from the 40s/50s through the 70s/80s; which probably represents the greatest period of economic advancement in the history of the world. There are differences between the two situations, including distinct cultural differences, which might mean that the growth may occur differently with drastically different problems. The most obvious is that the United States is more advanced and people are very used to the instant gratification culture that easy credit provides; and having to save up for a year or two to buy a TV, to own the same car for 20 years, or to save up for a decade to buy your first home may be completely unacceptable to the typical American today. On top of that, simple elements like Japan’s ability to achieve great educational success are far beyond what we have seen in the United States.
The core problem with this approach is the same core problem with any approach that could be successful; it can only work if you have the backing of China, who are (realistically) going to be unwilling to support any growth in US exports that come at the expense of China’s ability to sell products to the United States. If American’s start saving 10% (or more) of their income, and/or Americans become direct competitors for Chinese manufactured products internationally China has a lot to lose; and being that China is enough of a financial backer today to crush the US economy if they wanted the US can do little that would go against China without massive repercussions.
