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American officials said during their discussions they relayed Trump's commitment to addressing trade deficit concerns and resolving structural issues affecting trade between the two countries. (please see the full article, at the link) I really don't see what Trump is talking about, but I do not have access to our trade delegation either. Maybe he is seeing something different. What I am seeing, is we just set the worst trade deficit in all recorded history, with China. The worst ever. Worst. Between any two countries. Ever. It is not improving. It is getting worse. I am all for Trump, but...

RUSH: Yeah, another thing that’s so frustrating to me about all this honestly, folks, is that Donald Trump has really made good on his promise to make America great again and then is in the process of reshaping the world. Do you realize…? Have you heard the ChiComs have agreed to start importing rice from the United States? Now, stop and think about this for a second. Donald Trump sold ice to Eskimos. He has just made a deal where the ChiComs are gonna import rice from American farmers. The ChiComs on all of these arguments over tariffs are gonna...

Steve Hanke recently set out to prove “why President Trump’s trade message and protectionist policies are rubbish” in a Forbes article. Instead, the Johns Hopkins University economist exposed himself as a word-mincing, logic-twisting sophist—just like every other intellectual mercenary associated with the faux-libertarian propaganda mill that is the Cato Institute. Hanke’s argument: trade deficits don’t exist, China is not screwing America, and President Trump (the village idiot) is jousting windmills. The real problem is lazy Americans who shop-til-they-drop and demand welfare “gimmies” from Uncle Sam.

BREAKING - Top US Source says "deal is done" re #NAFTA. Joint statement from @USTradeRep & Canada's Freeland expected soon. I'm told #NAFTA deal was reached around 9:30pm tonight. Canada giving a larger % of its dairy market to US products in exchange for cultural protection & some form of dispute resolution process (formerly Ch 19).

The Commerce Department says the deficit in goods and services — the difference between what America sells and what it buys from other countries — rose to $50.1 billion in July from $45.7 billion in June. Exports slipped 1 percent to $211.1 billion. Imports increased 0.9 percent to a record $261.2 billion.

The United States trade deficit dropped in May to the lowest level in 19 months as exports rose to a record level. The Department of Commerce announced the May trade deficit — the difference between what America sells and what it buys in foreign markets — decreased 6.6 percent to $43.1 billion — the smallest imbalance since October 2016. Exports climbed 1.9 percent to a record $215.3 billion. Imports were up a smaller 0.4 percent to $258.4 billion. The Trump administration followed through with imposing tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products on Friday. China retaliated in kind, starting what...

A leading German think tank says Donald Trump is right that tariffs between the United States and Europe are asymmetrical, but urges negotiations to lower import taxes across the board. US President Donald Trump may actually have a point when it comes to unfair taxes on US goods coming into Europe. That is the finding of a new study by a leading German think tank. Where they differ is how to deal with it: The group urges new talks to lower tariffs across the board, instead of engaging in a tit-for-tat escalation in new taxes. “The EU is by no...

After three months of saber-rattling on the trade front – including the implementation of high duties on imported steel and aluminum, and threats of similarly high tariffs on a host of business and consumer products both from and to China – the dust appears to have settled for a while, with an announcement that China will work to import more from the USA, and a tentative agreement that a trade war would be bad for everybody. Within days, there were fresh discussions of new tariffs on other products that hadn’t been discussed previously - like cars and trucks – also...

Just-ended U.S.-China trade talks produced a commitment by Beijing to “significantly increase” its purchases of American goods and services, according to a joint statement Saturday from the rival economic powers trying to lower trade tensions. They also agreed on “meaningful increases” in U.S. exports of agriculture and energy products and greater efforts to increase trade in manufactured goods and services. The statement, however, provided no dollar amounts on how much China might boost its purchases of American products. The statement also was silent on whether the talks had made progress in easing the trade standoff between the world’s two biggest...

A Chinese tech giant brought to its knees and delays for imported U.S. cars, apples, lumber and other agricultural products are early signs the widening trade dispute between China and the U.S. is exacting a toll on both sides. More talks aimed at resolving the conflict are planned for next week in Washington, while both sides dig in for a fight over their trade imbalance. The tech company, telecommunications equipment and smartphone maker ZTE, said Wednesday that it’s ceasing “major operations” after the U.S. last month banned it from doing business with American suppliers for seven years as a punishment...

The trade deficit doesn't matter. There shouldn't be anything controversial about this fact. As Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, wrote in "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," "Nothing ... can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade." More meaningful economic indicators are the unemployment rate, wages and gross domestic product. Well, the unemployment rate is 4.1% and wages are growing. Although Barack Obama was the first president since Herbert Hoover not to see annual economic growth at 3% or higher during his presidency, the Congressional Budget Office...

Record exports trimmed the U.S. trade deficit in March, the first drop in seven months in a massive gap that President Donald Trump is determined to shrink with an aggressive America first policy. The Commerce Department says the trade deficit — the difference between what America sells and what it buys in foreign markets — slid to $49 billion, down from $57.7 billion in February and lowest since September. Trump has vowed to bring down America’s massive deficits, which he blames on bad trade agreements and abusive practices by U.S. trading partners. Exports rose in March to a record $208.5...

Maybe Donald Trump is such a powerful communicator and pot-stirrer that other countries, embarrassed by their own trade barriers, will eliminate them. Then I will thank the president for the wonderful thing he did. Genuine free trade will be a recipe for wonderful economic growth. But I fear the opposite: a trade war and stagnation -- because much of what Trump and his followers say is economically absurd. "(If) you don't have steel, you don't have a country!" announced the president. Lots of things are essential to America -- and international trade is the best way to make sure we...

President Trump hit back early Friday at critics at home for challenging his comments in Beijing on the massive trade deficit with China, doubling down on blaming not China but past U.S. administrations for the situation. “I don’t blame China,” Trump reiterated on Twitter. “I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100s of billions,” he continued. “How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would’ve done same!” The unrepentant Friday morning tweet...

President Donald Trump praised Chinese business leaders during his state visit to China, pointing out frankly that he didn’t blame them for the massive trade deficit with the United States. “I don’t blame China,” Trump said, pointing to estimations that the trade deficit with the United States was as high as $500 billion. “After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.” His remarks drew applause from the business leaders in the room. Trump blamed previous presidents of the United States for...

The cumulative merchandise trade deficit that the United States has run with Mexico in the 23 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect is nearing $1,000,000,000,000, according to data published by the U.S. Census Bureau. In the period from January 1994 through November 2016, according to Census Bureau numbers, the United States ran a cumulative merchandise trade deficit with Mexico of $986,532,000,000. The United States now sends more money to Mexico each year through our bilateral merchandise trade deficit than we spend on our own homeland security through the federal Department of Homeland Security. …

The election of Donald Trump caught many by surprise, especially on the left where Democrats watched in shock as the highest funded political campaign in history, that of Hillary Clinton, whose campaign spent an astounding $1.3 Billion, nearly doubling Trump’s at $795 million, lost. Many were stunned that a man who was new to politics and who had been maligned so severely by the media had been elected. Michael Moore, however, seemed to be one of the few outside of Trump and his supporters who saw it coming. As we start this story to help people understand what has happened...

The United States ran a $161,025,400,000 merchandise trade deficit with China through the first six months of 2016 (Janaury through June), according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau today. That deficit with China was by far the largest the U.S. accumulated with any country in the first half of the year. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — The deficit in the nation's broadest measure of trade increased in the January-March quarter to the highest level in more than seven years. The current account trade deficit jumped 9.9 percent in the first quarter to $124.7 billion, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. It was the biggest gap since a deficit of $152.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, the height of the financial crisis. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9b40ee4dfc9346db8c4f2a013d4ef9e7/us-current-account-trade-deficit-highest-level-7-years

The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $165.0623 billion in the first quarter of 2016, which was down slightly from the $165.7159 billion merchandise trade deficit the United States ran in the first quarter of 2015, according to data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau. The U.S. exported $347.5618 billion in goods during the quarter and imported $512.6241 billion. The bilateral merchandise trade deficit with China during the first quarter was $77.9461 billion—by far the largest with any nation. […] The second largest bilateral merchandise trade deficit the United States ran during the quarter was the $16.9356 billion...