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.

A Missed Opportunity in Munich

In his keynote speech at the sixty-third annual Munich Security Conference on February 14, American Secretary of State Marco Rubio missed an opportunity for the Trump administration to set the Western alliance on a new course that would recognize the desires of developing countries for access to capital and the freedom to trade, which is the driving force of the BRICS movement.