I think you meant to say that "A persistend multi year trade deficit that is an appreciable fraction of GNP is definitely not something you want to have.
Yea, that pretty much sums it up.
Having a trade defict can simply mean that you have more money to buy other people's things than they have money to buy yours.
However it means that we are making the rest of the world richer by buying more of their goods than they are buying of ours. That's still not necessarily a bad thing.
It does mean that we need to take a serious look at why our domestic goods aren't competitive with imports or why we cannot produce enough goods here to meet demand at competitive prices.