I just heard Wilbur Ross say on Bloomberg (around 3:35 p.m. ET), “The president was serious about solving the United States’ balance of payments problem.” I laughed and laughed and laughed. Maybe he was determined, but he, like Peter Navarro, had no idea how to proceed.
Here is the US trade balance defined using NIPA data.
Figure 1: U.S. net exports relative to GDP (blue), based on whether the NBER defined peak-to-trough dates of the recession in gray. Source: BEA 2024Q1 2nd version and author’s calculations.
I got tired of “winning” (as defined by Trump) a long time ago – but for a reminder of the horrors of Trump’s economic policies, see this job.
