By Jeff Ferry, CPA Research Director The United States’ trade deficit surged 12% in January 2017 to hit $48.5 billion, its highest level in almost five years. The growth in our trade deficit reflects America’s failed trade policy, persistent mercantilist practices by some of our largest trading counterparties, and slower export growth. January’s trade deficit…
The Washington Post must think that U.S. trade policy is really awful. Why else would they continually lie to their readers and claim that the cause of the sharp job loss in manufacturing in recent years was automation? [Dean Baker| March 4, 2017 |Beat the Press] For fans of data rather than myths, the basic story is…
Americans desperately need simpler, fairer personal and corporate taxes. [Peter Morici| March 6, 2017 |Washington Post] The current system imposes terribly high rates and a myriad of special-interest credits and deductions. It requires expensive record keeping that drives taxpayers mad and complex auditing functions at the Internal Revenue Service that have proven susceptible to political abuse —…
By Michael Stumo, CEO Peter Navarro, Director of the White House National Trade Council, wrote a “trade policy manifesto” op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal this week focusing upon balanced trade. The new balanced trade policy is unwelcome on Wall Street and in some congressional leadership offices. But it is welcomed by workers, farmers,…
Today the Commerce Department announced that the US trade deficit for January was $48.5 billion, up 9% from the December figure of $44.3 billion and up 12% from the year-ago figure last January. “Our trade deficit continues to stack up month by month, adding to the negative pressure on the U.S. economy,” said CPA Research Director, Jeff…
BEIJING — China has charted out a $300 billion plan to become nearly self-sufficient by 2025 in a range of important industries, from planes to computer chips to electric cars, as it looks to kick-start its next stage of economic development. [KEITH BRADSHER and PAUL MOZUR| March 7, 2017 |The New York Times] But big companies in the…
By Michael Stumo, CEO The old guard free trade establishment is scrambling to counter the more economic nationalist positions of the Trump administration. Gary Hufbauer does not like Peter Navarro’s (Director, White House National Trade Counsel) national security concerns about the trade deficit resulting in other countries buying strategic assets in the US, including the…
By Jeff Ferry, CPA Research Director There has been lots of talk of the danger of “trade wars” in newspapers in recent months. The Trade War Alarmists are likely wrong. In a sense we already are in a trade war, because many of the largest nations we import from are using strategic trade policies to…
Do trade deficits matter? The question is important because America’s trade deficit in goods is large and persistent, about $2 billion every day. [PETER NAVARRO| March 5, 2017 |Wall Street Journal] The economic argument that trade deficits matter begins with the observation that growth in real GDP depends on only four factors: consumption, government spending,…
China bears the brunt of U.S. anger over unfair trade, but Germany’s foreign surpluses are now far larger and may be more consequential for America’s economy and the rest of the world. [TOM FAIRLESS| March 6, 2017 |Wall Street Journal] Low-wage Chinese workers have put downward pressure on U.S. manufacturing wages for years, but Germany’s…
