More From Mark Perry

[Ponca Dan]

In which he explains there is no trade imbalance. Apparently Trump confuses the budget deficit, which is real, and involves the government spending more money than it has, with the so-called trade deficit, which does not exist, because it involves trading a value for a value and both sides of the equation profit.
http://www.aei.org/publication/blog/carpe-diem/

 

[Ostatedchi]

Dude, you are becoming more of a spammer than NZ. We get it.

 

[aix_xpert]

There is a trade imbalance. Not sure who would argue otherwise. Now the impact of the trade imbalance is debatable. Some argue that the benefit of the trade outweighs the potential costs even in an unbalanced trade, but its pretty whimsical to simply ignore the trade imbalance as if it doesn't even exist.

 

[Ponca Dan]

There is a trade imbalance. Not sure who would argue otherwise. Now the impact of the trade imbalance is debatable. Some argue that the benefit of the trade outweighs the potential costs even in an unbalanced trade, but its pretty whimsical to simply ignore the trade imbalance as if it doesn't even exist.

Joe from Italy sells me widgets. He exchanges his widgets for my money. What is the imbalance? He gets x amount of dollars, and I get x dollar amount of widgets. The balance is even. There is no trade imbalance. It's an imbalance if my money is worth less than his widgets, or vice versa. It is just as appropriate to say America has a product surplus compared to Italy. But the books balance out to zero. There is no trade imbalance.