As trade deficit explodes, Trump finds he can’t escape the laws of economics

Credit: Andy Wong, AP

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the United States last year posted an $891.2 billion trade deficit in merchandise, the largest in the nation’s 243-year history despite more than two years of President Trump’s “America First” policies.

The results were a sobering reminder that the laws of economics still apply to a president who had promised to supercharge economic growth while simultaneously shrinking the chronic U.S. trade deficit.

Those twin promises proved incompatible, as economists had predicted.

View the complete March 6 article by David J. Lynch on The Washington Post website here.