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Useful stuff, but what is the deficit whch continues to widen the national debt? Positive in favor of the US? Or negative? Income versus out going?

"The trade deficit in the US remained near-record levels of $89.18 billion in February of 2022, compared to $89.22 billion in January as imports continue to soar amid robust demand and rising oil prices. Imports were up 1.3% to hit a record high of $317.8 billion, on higher shipments of crude oil, other chemicals and petroleum products, fuel oil, and capital goods."

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade

Yup. "...higher shipments of crude oil, other chemicals and petroleum products, fuel oil, and capital goods."

And "Trade deficits were recorded with China ($41.2 billion), the EU ($17 billion), Mexico ($9.8 billion) and Canada ($6.8 billion). The goods gap with Russia widened to $2.1 from $1.6 billion. source: Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)"

Sounds like our nation is on the deficit side of the column regularly, and not on the earnings side, in spite of your prose "that foreign customers buy in copious amounts."

[Sounds like our nation is on the deficit side of the column regularly, and not on the earnings side, in spite of your prose “that foreign customers buy in copious amounts.” ]

And yet your phone is powered by Android or iOS. There’s a problem in the way they account for trade - the numbers don’t reflect the value added. Deng Xiaoping complained about this - he said that Nike sneakers assembled in China reflected Chinese value-added of perhaps $5, but the entire wholesale value of $30 was added to Chinese export numbers. He might have been steeped in Marxist doubletalk, but he was no dummy.

Here’s one way to look at this - a bulge bracket lawyer runs an enormous trade deficit with her live-in baby-sitter. She buys the baby-sitter’s services, but the baby-sitter buys none of hers. Will a day come that the chickens come home to roost on this persistent trade deficit? Call me skeptical.