As the government on Tuesday reported that the American trade deficit contracted by nearly 10 percent in February, analysts noted
that exports from the United States had been aided by a recent weakening in the value of the dollar, which makes American goods cheaper on world markets.
In the case of the United States, trade deficits with the world have been a feature of economic life for more than three decades, a sweep of time
that has seen economic booms, the worst downturn since the Great Depression and plenty of events in between.
Back in the 1980s, it was Japan that played the boogeyman in the American political conversation, the goliath
believed to be gobbling up American prosperity with every Sony Walkman it sent toward American shores.
Despite tremendous economic advances, China remains a relatively low-income country, home to hundreds
of millions of people who cannot afford the more sophisticated fruits of the American economy.
China’s trade surplus with the United States, which reached $347 billion last year, does in part reflect dubious Chinese practices, including lavishing state credit on favored exporters
and flooding world markets with low-cost goods to keep its laborers employed.
The Trump administration faces the problem that China’s high trade barriers are allowed by the World Trade Organization,
because China entered the group as a developing country and insists it still is one.
Now, with Mr. Trump in the White House, much of human civilization has seemingly been cast as the predator class — Germany, Mexico,
China, willfully fleecing Americans through a series of trade deals extended by a Washington elite too clueless to fight them.
