try forming an argument
Net transaction means that I have something, and he has a few pieces of paper.
The subject is trade balance, the operative word is TRADE. All you have to do is look at oil/gasoline prices to see the result of sending "a few pieces of paper" in only one direction.
Can "a few pieces of paper" produce more "pieces of paper" here after they're gone? If the other countries dropped their barriers of our products wouldn't that produce more "pieces of paper" here?
Did you get your "few pieces of paper" out of thin air or are they the result of producing a product you could sell to the country that puts a heavy tariff on or doesn't even allow?
Is the country you freely give your "pieces of paper" to going to use them to expand their operations here?...or there?
I'll send you my address. You can send me all the "pieces of paper" you want.
Thank you for forming an argument.
Would you also say that a shark, at the top of the food chain, suffers a trade imbalance because it consumes more than it is consumed?
The pieces of paper are a marker, a chip, a measure. When I buy something from overseas, I do it voluntarily, because the trade is beneficial to ME. When we, as a people, through the combined but individual actions, choose to purchase overseas products more than we purchase domestic products, it's because WE want to, and each of those transactions benefitted those who engaged in it.
Oil prices rising is the effect of our demand for oil outpacing expected supply for oil. When prices rise, the flow slows, until an equilibrium is met.
The few pieces of paper can't do anything but be traded for something. The product that came over did something or will do something, maybe something worthwhile that can be traded for more pieces of paper. The object isn't to collect pieces of paper, it's to trade those pieces of paper in order to fulfill needs and wants.
The little pieces of paper more or less came from the thin air of fractional reserve banking, lent in to existence at a cost of 1/10 face value in national debt. Look into it.
If a company tarriffs our products we'll have fewer pieces of paper with which to buy theirs. It's more their loss than ours, because we can find other consumers for our products, and their citizen's have to pay more for their tarriffed products, even if produced domestically to them.
If their industries are protected by tarriffs, they'll likely waste much of their pieces of paper building inefficient production capacity, and we'll continue to enjoy cheap imports.
If tarriffs are such a good idea, why don't we implement a few between the states?