Trying to shrink the trade deficit, Trump ends up making it bigger
Trying to shrink the trade deficit, Trump ends up making it bigger
By Steve Benen at MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trying-shrink-the-trade-deficit-trump-ends-making-it-bigger
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Last summer, as Donald Trump’s trade war started to take shape, the Republican president told Fox News he believed he could cut the U.S. trade deficit in half. It came two years after Candidate Trump assured voters his agenda would be so successful, Americans would see a drop in the trade deficit “like you’ve never seen before.”
How’s that working out?
President Trump’s trade war has led to even bigger trade deficits with China, even though it was intended to improve the trade balance. But it’s not just China – the deficit has increased with most of our other major trade partners, too.
While economists agree that trade deficits aren’t a good way to measure a trade relationship, they are the metric Trump fixates on, made campaign promises about and uses to evaluate relationships with other countries.
Axios’ report on this, published yesterday, added that the U.S. trade deficit covering the first six months of 2019 is “even bigger than in the last two years.”
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