As an American, I regret to inform you that you're trying to use logic to understand a situation where it seems like logic wasn't used (in terms of the economic impact). These are the same fuckwits that tried to claim a trade deficit is the same as a tariff.
I am unsure why anyone would want to change the trade imbalance when you are arguably the richest country on earth. You have a trade imbalance because you are rich and can buy everything you want.
Nobody in onshoring manufacturing with this level of instability in the finances of this country at this time. Trump changes his mind too often to build billions of dollars worth of factories.
The budget deficit is not the trade deficit. You are not taking on debt when you purchase a foreign good, just like you as an individual don't take on debt when you go to Walmart and exchange money for goods but Walmart doesn't buy anything from you.
The US domestic economy is vastly larger than its foreign trade (which is only 20% of America's GDP), so you can in fact run a persistent trade deficit and a budget surplus at the same time, which the US actually did for a while during the 90s and early 2000s. We need to teach more economics honestly.
Sure, but pointing a financial gun at the heads of your creditors will cause them to immediately cease giving you further loans and start selling off the debt they already hold.
This isn’t some analogy.
This is precisely what just happened!
The bond market imploded and less stupid people forced Trump to backpedal.
He’s a child playing with many-trillion-dollar matters. I wouldn’t trust Trump to split a dinner cheque.
You are assuming manufacturing trade as only income. Services export and IP export are other where USA leads. When Apple sells iPhone in India and China, it gets to bring back the profits to the USA. Same goes for EU paying for Netflix and Disney movies and Google services. Same for McDonalds, Starbucks, Coca Cola and Pepsi. Collectively, US companies make 100s of billions of profits from outside USA. Another perk is being the reserve currency, you print bonds for free, get clothes/toys for that and rest of the world is just holding onto that IOU. Again, trillions of dollars.
Are you confusing the budget deficit with the trade deficit? Is that what all this is about?
I spend far more on restaurants, household services, and vehicle maintenance than those companies pay me. I have a massive trade imbalance with those companies.
But that has nothing to do with whether my household budget is balanced.
Do people really think that making goods more expensive for consumers will somehow produce the funds to support even greater tax cuts for billionaires?
> I spend far more on restaurants, household services, and vehicle maintenance than those companies pay me. I have a massive trade imbalance with those companies.
And if, for example, a sales tax was increased this would motivate you to buy less services, make food at home and learn how to fix your car.
Sure. But at the cost of the time that I currently use to do other things.
Are you moving the argument from conflating budget and trade deficits to saying the United States’ multi-century economic focus on consumer spending is a mistake, and we need to shift to a savings-focused economy like China used to be? I also think that’s wrong, but it has nothing at all to do with the federal government’s budget deficit.
Or are you under the mistaken impression that trade income is the only income the country has?
