President Barack Obama has learned the lesson.  He is putting more effort into explaining what he is doing.  In The New York Times column Exporting Our Way to Stability, he explains the reason for his Asian trip.

AS the United States recovers from this recession, the biggest mistake we could make would be to rebuild our economy on the same pile of debt or the paper profits of financial speculation. We need to rebuild on a new, stronger foundation for economic growth. And part of that foundation involves doing what Americans have always done best: discovering, creating and building products that are sold all over the world.

Perhaps you read the idea of exports powering our way to the future on this very blog. In my August 2 post titled Defining Prosperity Down, I said the following addressed to my friend ScottC:

So what will power our economy in the future?  It has to be exports.  There are places in the world where this over consumption from a real estate bubble did not happen.  In fact there is under consumption in these places compared to the rising real wealth (standard of living) of the people in those countries.  You probably know from your own experience with coworkers and customers that India, China, Korea, and Viet Nam are growth areas, to name a few.

Also look at the April post Romer: Recovery to be export fueled and the January post Capitalism Is The Path To Prosperity.