One could argue that the royal family who did most of the exporting British misery were the Germans. Up until the Hanoverians took over we were entirely peaceful and got on with doing tiny wars in Europe with the French and the Spanish which we were almost always losing. It's only when the Germans got involved that we got into real trouble - and we haven't looked back.

Also, we did export some nice stuff too. Like English common law, the pork pie and queuing.