Trump concerned about trade deficit

AlArabiya English

US economy is growing quicker than any other major economy; however, it does run a significant merchandise trade deficit, economist Laurie Laird says.  #US #EU #Tariffs #Trump #WNews

Transcript

00:00Trump says he wants to use tariffs to tackle the trade deficit. We've heard him say that a lot.

00:07Is the U.S. trade deficit a huge problem many economists just aren't discussing?

00:14I'm so glad someone has asked this question because the merchandise trade balance,

00:21that's the trade in goods, things like cars, steel, things that you can touch.

00:28That merchandise trade deficit is a real metric for Donald Trump in looking at the economy along with the stock market.

00:35And I think the early fall of the stock market today may have been something that concerned Donald Trump.

00:40These aren't metrics that conventional economists would say would indicate the health of an economy.

00:46The U.S. economy is growing more quickly than any other major economy, except for perhaps Spain.

00:52Spain's hanging in there pretty well, yet does run quite a big merchandise trade deficit.

00:58To a certain extent, that's an indication of America's strength.

01:02That means American consumers are feeling flush. They can afford imported products.

01:08And if you look at some of the world's biggest exporters right now, look at Germany, look at China.

01:12These are economies that are really struggling at the moment.

01:16So a trade surplus in the case of Germany or China is not necessarily a clean bill of economic health.

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