Posted on 02/07/2017 8:14:36 AM PST by xzins
The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $734,316,300,000 in 2016, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.
During 2016, the U.S. imported $2,188,940,500,000 in goods but exported only $1,454,624,200,000.
The Peoples Republic of China was the greatest contributor to the U.S. merchandise trade deficit for the year. The U.S bilateral merchandise trade deficit with China was $347,037,900,000. This deficit resulted from the U.S. importing $462,813,000,000 in goods from China while exporting only $115,775,100,00 in goods to China.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Sounds like someone invented the perpetual motion machine.
Not really.
Whatever the answers to those are, we do know that the overall trade deficits are in the hundreds of billions with China and 60 billion with Mexico.
I don’t see the advantage of a fruit stand buying 4 times the merchandise than it sells.
The first time you said “goods” Now you are specifying, I believe, specifically the goods that it sells. Those are 2 diff scenarios. Friedman was referring to the first.
How about you, specifically? Do you buy more goods then you sell?
I have a monstrous trade deficit with Wal-Mart, DirecTV, and Amazon. They never buy anything from me, yet eat up most of my budget. Someone ought to do something!
That’s the only place you can spend dollars (except for a few places that it’s also legal tender).
Eventually they have to come back here unless you just collect them.
And who builds those homes and where does the material comes from?
I don’t think they pay their workers with dollars.
They spend most of the dollars buying US treasuries - IOW, they fund our budget deficits.
They also buy houses here as well as other assets, which help our economy.
Drywall from China, anyone? LOL.
Really? No other country will take U.S. dollars? Ever heard of a currency market?
PLEASE keep following that train of thought! I PROMISE you will learn something very important.
And who do you blame for that? Who is the sap in that transaction? Buyer beware.
If you can buy more goods than you need from what you sell, then you're ahead.
Materials come from a mixture of places: US, Mexico, Canada and of course China.
New home builders are a mixture of US-based companies and Chinese.
But the Chinese are not just purchasing new homes. They are purchasing everything they can get their hands on, and they are paying with CASH. They don’t want to invest their money in China so they come to the west coast and buy real estate.
OK, all this says to me is that President Trump has a lot of bargaining power when it comes to foreign affairs and trade. Clearly, these countries need us way more than we need them.
Taxes are a penalty. Taxing imports is reasonable, as it appears taxing reportable work is also “reasonable.” But, which is healthier for a country, to penalize cheap imports that didn't employ a US citizen or pay taxes, or to penalize someone who does reportable work (and not tax welfare, etc.)?
Please tell us, oh wise one. Oh, and no country has "free trade" with any other country, today.
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