I think this is a bit dismissive of the issue --and the thinking that sunk the Hillary's campaign.
In terms of trade, the US typically like to pay it forward --it lets trade partners have a slight advantage so long as it sees a net positive (see China) presumably Trump would ask for equal benefits.
So rather than asking is this good for the global economy his administration might instead ask, is this good for the US economy? While the answer to the questions often overlap, at times the current answer does not optimize of the US economy.
> In terms of trade, the US typically like to pay it forward --it lets trade partners have a slight advantage so long as it sees a net positive (see China) presumably Trump would ask for equal benefits.
That's a weird language. It's to the best benefit of the country to just adopt unilateral free trade. No need to bargain.
Of course, politically, that's not feasible.
But there's no `benefit' that comes at a cost to the country when allowing your citizens to freely trade with other countries citizens.
>It's to the best benefit of the country to just adopt unilateral free trade. No need to bargain
I'm not seeing Brazil, Japan or China adopt this philosophy --even the EU. If you were to start unilateral free trade what happens is others will protect themselves and you are left holding the deficit bag. Your consumers will be happy (yay consumerism!), but your wage-earners will not be happy.
Europe has a trade surplus, they aren't doing so well.
Australia has been running a deficit for ages. They have been doing splendidly.
Also, often a trade deficit is just a statistical artefact: if the Chinese ship a billion t-shirts to the US, and in return get a skyscraper in Manhattan, that skyscraper-for-t-shirts trade will show up as contributing to the trade-deficit, just because the skyscraper doesn't move.
(Some for them buying some silicone valley company instead of the skyscraper. And America is good at producing lots of those companies.)
In terms of trade, the US typically like to pay it forward --it lets trade partners have a slight advantage so long as it sees a net positive (see China) presumably Trump would ask for equal benefits.
So rather than asking is this good for the global economy his administration might instead ask, is this good for the US economy? While the answer to the questions often overlap, at times the current answer does not optimize of the US economy.