The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website March 6, 2018:
The president has harsh words about trade imbalances, but his numbers don’t always add up. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
In defending his threatened new tariffs on steel and aluminum, President Trump has made a number of statements about trade deals and deficits. Here’s a guide to the rhetoric. Because this is a quick roundup, we’re not assigning Pinocchios, but many of his claims are highly exaggerated.
“We lost, over the last number of years, $800 billion a year. Not a half a million dollars, not 12 cents. We lost $800 billion a year on trade. Not going to happen. We got to get it back.”
— Trump, remarks to reporters, March 5
We are going to keep explaining this until we are blue in the face but countries do not “lose” money on trade deficits. For some reason, the president must have missed this lesson in economics class when he attended Wharton. Continue reading “Fact-checking President Trump’s trade rhetoric”