Because of the recession at home, Japan has seen a decline in expensive imports of luxuries, which were enormously fashionable during the second half of the 1980s. This effect has been compounded, thanks to slow growth elsewhere, by low prices for the international commodities that Japanese industry depends upon. Exports of Japanese machinery, on the other hand, withstood the downturn quite well because the Asian economies that buy them continued to boom. Also, the American and Japanese economy have been out of kilter. America's strengthening economy caused an increase in American demand for Japanese imports while Japanese demand for foreign goods declined. The effect is amplified because 35% of American exports to Japan are industrial commodities, which are highly sensitive to the business cycle.