Why Do We Care About The Trade Deficit?
It's a standard point among economists, deriving from Adam Smith, that there's no point in worrying about any trade deficit as it simply isn't important. We should, thus, be paying little attention to these balance of trade reports.
That isn't, unfortunately, how things play out. The Administration, the President, and also the Chinese, do worry about trade balances. Thus they're something we should worry about too - not because they matter but because the people taking decisions think they do.
A falling deficit, however caused, makes further