Trump Sets Record with Highest Trade Deficit Ever

[workinclasszero]

By Josh Marshall March 6, 2019 9:01 am

Here is a remarkable and yet entirely unremarkable story. The Commerce Department announced this morning that the country’s trade deficit last year was the biggest in US history.

It’s $891 billion for merchandise, $621 billion when the service sector is added in, and $419 billion with China alone. Each is a record.

The Post reports that the overall number tops the previous record of $838 billion in 2006, but it doesn’t seem like those numbers are adjusted for inflation or judged relative to the overall size of the economy. So possibly there should be an asterisk after biggest ever. (This Reuters article says biggest since 2008 when adjusted for inflation.) Still however you slice it, for all President Trump’s yakking and fairly disruptive trade wars, the problem has actually gotten worse.

If nothing else what we can draw from this is that for all the storm and chaos President Trump’s policies have entirely failed to accomplish the goal – or even move toward the goal – they are supposedly aimed to address.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-sets-record-with-highest-trade-deficit-ever

[SummerSnow]

1. Trump: No one does trade defecits bigger then me

[ooky]

2. Trade is just another one of Trump's big, giant lies.

Trump has seen that he can take credit for improving pretty much anything he lies about, and his ignorant base will believe it all.

The trade deficits, just like the budget deficits, are soaring under Trump policies, basically because he is the "do nothing" president.

He's doing absolutely nothing. He reminds me of George Costanza sitting in his office 8 hours a day making paper airplanes and places to sleep under his desk. That's Trump in a nutshell.

[moondust]

3. Bigger is always better in Trumpistan, right?

Biggest crowds, biggest national debt, biggest trade deficit...