| >Trump believes that the USA is getting a bad deal - not that trade is bad. China may purchase US companies and Universities, but US is nowhere close to being able to do the same in China. I'd like to believe this is so, but the evidence doesn't support it. Trump and Peter Navarro have repeatedly criticized trade itself, and particularly trade deficits, rather than asymmetric trade barriers. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/trump-anti-free-trade... https://www.axios.com/peter-navarro-globalist-protectionist-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/over-four-decades-tr... >Also, you say that Trump misunderstands trade deficits. Can you prove that at all? He's a very successful businessman. I would be more likely to think it's you with the misunderstanding. Business and economics are very distinct fields; the idea that success in business leads to academic understanding of economics is a misconception. Trump believes, as shown in the linked tweet, that a country "loses money" when a trade deficit exists. In reality, trade deficits and capital inflows are inextricably linked, due to an accounting identity. >As economist Milton Friedman argued long ago, the real gain from international trade is not what we export but what we import. |