Trump and America’s record trade deficit

One of US president Donald Trump’s major economic goals is reducing America’s trade goods deficit. He believes that America’s tendency to import a lot of manufactured goods is a key economic weakness and a sign that the US is being taken advantage of in international trade.

In pursuit of this goal, he has implemented an aggressive trade policy, slapping tariffs onto the imports of allies and rivals alike and cancelling major trade agreements. In conjunction with his policy of deep tax cuts and increased government borrowing, this policy approach has had a predictable result: the US has now recorded its biggest-ever trade goods deficit. The deficit grew particularly strongly with two of the biggest targets of Trump’s hostile trade policy, the EU and China.

It just goes to show that the forces of economics apply to the powerful and the weak alike. For all America’s economic might and Trump’s global power, he cannot overcome the realities of how trade works. It’s a lesson that SA’s own Jacob Zuma also had to learn the hard way. After all, even kings and queens are subject to gravity.

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