I'm not confusing them at all.
Foreign nation's use the money they recieve from our Trade Deficit to purchase the debt issued by our Treasury to finance our government's deficit spending and National Debt. This means that you, as a taxpayer, pay interest to the governments of foreign nations to subsidize "cheap" imports.
Willie, our trade 'deficit' is caused by high consumer activity. The DEMAND for goods are high, and the money is spent on these goods as the come in. In otherwords, it's a record of money spent. Our money.
Yes, they have sold us stuff. And now they have some money to spend as well. All that money isn't in the hands of some foriegn nation's government, it's in the hands of various companies who operate in that Nation. Our national Debt is drawn from the world bank, another beast WE created.