Hong Kong has a smaller population than Pennsylvania, and has a per person GDP nearly 20,000 less than the US.
Playing middle man broker for other folks trade can work to help you make some cash, but it isn’t a viable option for a nation of 330 Million. Trying to compare HK to the US is patently absurd.
HK is sort of like the San Fran or SEATAC of the asian rim... lots of goods going elsewhere flow through it, causing a lot of centralized wealth from it, but it isn’t something that flows out or scales up. Playing a broker by a small state and taking a margin works for HK, it doesn’t work for a country like the US. SF and SEATAC are examples... those ports get a lot of wealth, because huge amounts of goods sold throughout the rest of the country flow through there, but they are just middle men taking a cut, not producing anything and that wealth doesn’t flow to the rest of the nation where those goods are actually consumed.
The point is there is nothing per se wrong with so-called “trade deficits”. Goods that are purchased can either consumed or parleyed into other products which can in turn be sold domestically or internationally.
THE issue is the high cost of doing business in the U.S. and the culprit is the federal government as explained along with the solutions in post #78.
Most people (and especially economists and other liberals) fail to understand is that having the US as a market, an economy and a nation makes today’s world possible.