America’s Import-Export Trade

Vive la France (by way of Texas).

I am mostly on vacation for a few weeks, though I have a few articles I wrote before leaving that will be published in the coming days. Stay tuned.

I also got a comment from a reader that sent me down a rabbit hole that I wanted to share with you.

I haven’t been watching much of the Olympics this year. I missed the opening ceremonies, which apparently were very French and very weird—but I repeat myself—and sent extremely online conservatives into a tizzy. As for the rest of the olympics, I’m still trying to catch up on the highlights.

In the meantime, reader Nick Nemeth sent me this comment.

I have been watching the Olympics the past few days and something occurred to me. The US seems to be exporting Olympians. Even if the USA does not win gold, perhaps we still are? While watching gymnastics, they went through a list of about half a dozen women who are from the US but did not make the team and so decided to compete anyway, but for the country of their parents’ or grandparents’ birth. Or take the example of the French swimmer Léon Marchand. Yes, he really is French, but he specifically sought out and pleaded to attend Arizona State University so that he could work under and receive training from the swimming coach there (who also coached Phelps). It makes me wonder, just how many gold medals is the US “really” winning, this summer?

Incidentally, I just came across a reference to Nandor Nemeth—presumably a distant relation—who seems to be the leading hope for Hungary’s swim team in Paris.

Yes, this is a longstanding trend.