Trade Deficits and Sound Money

In recent years, and with particular intensity since Donald Trump’s ascent to the political center stage, trade deficits have been increasingly cast as symbols of national weakness. Persistent US trade deficits are treated not as accounting outcomes, but as evidence of unfair dealing, foreign predation, or elite incompetence. Surpluses are praised as victories, while deficits are framed as losses demanding correction through tariffs, subsidies, and industrial policy.