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One of the main reasons US regime started the tariff war against the world a couple of years ago (something Trump is continuing in his own way) is to decrease the ever rising trade deficit that the colony has with the rest of the world (ie. US imports more than it exports). As I've said many times, production in the colony is very expensive so they'll have to import everything now since it is cheaper to produce them elsewhere.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/us-international-trade-goods-and-services-january-2025
In this recent stats released by the U.S. department of commerce, we can see how that deficit has significantly grown in January 2025 to $131 billion (from $98.1 billion in December after reaching a total of $918.4 billion in 2024 up from $784.9 billion in 2023). So we can already see the trend of increasing trade deficit with an upward trajectory.

Something interesting in this stat is the increasing trade deficit with India. It seems like my speculation about India replacing China is coming true slowly but surely. The link about mentions the increased deficit to $13.2 billion in fourth quarter and even though there is a long way to go from $129.2 billion total trade with $45.7 billion deficit with India to total trade of $582.4 billion and a deficit of $295.4 billion with China but the path seems very familiar.
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/south-central-asia/india
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china

Seeing these stats gives us a better understanding on why the US regime is declaring [economic] war against the rest of the world and is currently desperately imposing tariffs on everyone while it has not yet worked which is clearly seen in the increasing trade deficit.
IMO the only choices they have is to either dump the dollar value which they neither want to nor their policies allow it, or have others increase their fiat currency exchange rate against the dollar (like Plaza Accord that destroyed Japanese growing economy) which nobody wants to do!!! Therefore the impasse!

I do not know much about this tariff economy thing than people are complaining that it will later lead to inflation as Trump is indirectly imposing the tariff on United States citizens as usual. If foreign goods price increase, definitely local goods price will increase.

Also some people speculate that at the end, either United States will not be the one that this will still later be favoured or probably the the loser. I think there is something that should be done than thinking of encouraging production in the United States through increasing import tariffs.

I think he already knows what is going on and he has started to pause the import tariff on some goods imported from Canada and Mexico and also increasing the goods exempted from his new tariffs on Canada and Mexico that were imposed this week.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/03/06/trump-tariffs-live-updates-businesses-warn-of-ripple-down-effects-from-tariffs-because-of-rising-costs.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y03qleevvo.amp

Why is Trump making 25% import tariff on Canada when the US export to Canada than import?

Or he thinks people are smuggling goods from Canada. I do not think Canada deserves this.

You are right about this. Decreasing the dollar price will let the world not to have interest in the United States dollars anymore as it will significantly affect countries foreign reserves. I think the effect will also be very negative on the US as more countries may fully go for BRICS idea to ditch the dollar which might even later lead to the development of the world's currency.

United States can not control other countries. And as your posted, no country will do that.

Looking at the figures, the trend clearly shows the trade deficit isn’t improving. They’re trying to address it by increasing tariffs, but if this only worsens the situation, they’ll likely reconsider. The data already showed that even before the tariff hike, there was already a trade deficit. so now that they’ve raised it, things might get even worse.

The thing is, tariffs are supposed to reduce the trade deficit, but the data suggests otherwise. This makes it a real challenge for them to reverse the growing trend because, in the long run, it’s not good for the U.S. economy.

Donald Trump promised his supporters so many things. And some of his campaign promises cannot be implemented without harming American society. He knows that this tariff war will bring nothing but suffering and pain to the US economy but wants to please his supporters. Consumers will always prefer imported goods because it is cheaper than local products. Trump also knows that he cannot sustain this tariff war for a long time.

Trump's intention is just to pretend that he is fulfilling his campaign promises and within a few months, all these tariffs war will end. He wants to be seen as powerful and wants other presidents to bow to him. Justin Trudeau has refused to be a puppet but it seems Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is loyal.

Nobody wants to do it but there are some countries that will budge and give into bullying. We've seen what they did in Panama. It is worth mentioning that the Plaza Accord in 1985 was to force Japan to increase their fiat exchange rate and willingly destroy their own economy to help US economy survive! I just heard another thing that Japan has announced they'll now invest even more into U.S. buying more of their debt! which is why the experts say that the day dollar dumps, the first economy that would be destroyed is Japanese economy...

Literally, the United States cannot control other countries, but just like you said here. Any country that is in debt to the US will surely suffer if anything happens to the US economy. Of course their economy will crumble more than the US economy. Because the United States will surely find a of over overcome any problem they are facing.

Employment rate has reduced to 4.1% in Trump's regime. About 151,000 jobs were opened, which many citizens have been offered jobs. The citizens have no choice but to pay the stipulated tariff for each household.

US Adds 151000 Jobs in February, Unemployment Rate 4.1% (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-03-07/us-adds-151-000-jobs-in-february-unemployment-rate-4-1-video)

remember.. stats are based on pre-trump tariff numbers..
we wont find out how tariffs affect trade until many months AFTER the tariffs kick in.. so lets wait and see
also worth noting that the 131b deficit is just a import minus export math summation
Imports:    $401.2 Billion
Exports:    $269.8 Billion
Deficit:    $131.4 Billion
so if less imports happen EG just 10% less imports and a simple 5% increase of exports
Imports:    $361.2 Billion
Exports:    $283.3 Billion
Deficit:    $77.9 Billion

the deficit changes by a noticeable amount more then 5%-10% (41%)
..
also worth noting international businesses know of ways around tariffs, lets take freeports as an example

car manufacturers can assemble an EV driveshaft and battery bay chassis(base frame of car) export from international (import to US) freeport. and incur no tariff to pay. then at the us side fix the chassis to the body work, call it a Us built car and on leaving the us freeport to go to a car dealership the dealership is buying domestic thus no tariff even if the main components (motor and electronics) is made in china

enjoy that thought
yep car manufacturers can have 2 factories in 2 countries thus not trigger the tariff as its not a sold delivery when transporting to the US, and then convert it to being a US built final product to then not charge the dealership a tariff when actually sold/delivered to customer

the car manufacturer does not need to build a whole new factory in the US. they just need to lease warehousing at a freeport, move the final stage production machines from china to the US which doesnt take much time. and hey-presto.

unlike fabricating and building a whole car start to finish factory(multiple different machines), all they need in the US is the final assembly of completed parts section
..
the reason why other countries dont like the tariffs has nothing to do with the tariff being charged to them.. its actually that they know when businesses move final assembly to the US. the later sell of final goods and delivery to customer is no longer international but US bought. so the international country does not get its sales tax/V.A.T as the sale did not occur on the international side.

so its not about charging a international countries treasury more in the form of tariffs. its the international countries treasury losing out on sales/vat tax

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lets take a example (dummy numbers) of how things will change

imagine china can make a phone for $200 (parts($100) and labour($100)) and sell it for $400 + chinese sales tax rate(13%) = $452
imagine US can made a phone for $400 (parts($200) and labour($200)) start to finish all in the US... and sell it for $800+ ussales tax rate(5%) = $840
many smart savvi consumers would buy a chinese import and save nearly 50% right

but imagine the tariff kicked in. the savvi consumer buying an import would then need to pay $452 +25% tariff=$565

now imagine the phone brand moved final assembly to the US
so US made a phone for $250 (chinese parts($100), chinese labour($90) us labour($60)) co-built china and the US... and sell it for $500+ us sales tax rate(5%) = $525

and hey presto. us is now cheaper then china. and china is not getting its $52 sales tax

The follower base he has is not really interested in "winning" as much as they are interested in making others lose. So for example, if they put tariffs to Canada, and that hurts Canada, then they are happy about it and do not care if that also hurts USA as well.

If anyone didn't want USA to be hurt, they wouldn't elect Trump to begin with, everyone knew from the start that he would hurt USA and that was obvious from a mile away. But they wanted "revenge" or something, like hurt others, stop help to Africa, stop funding NATO, stop trading with Canada, basically just get out and say that we hate you all to the world. Did he do that? He did. That is all his followers asked for and he delivered so his followers are happy with him.

I just really hope he removes these tariffs soon & the threat of them in the future. Markets hate uncertainty, we are all losing a lot of money due to this. Bitcoin has been on a downward slide since inauguration day. We all want to see this reverse, I really hope that happens soon. These constant daily red candles are getting tiresome. 

They are actually not doing anything beneficial to each of them as these leader just create trouble to each country. If Trump would continue to increase their tariff then provably that they will also get affected with these matters.

Its somehow great that he pause this for Mexico and Canada https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-pauses-mexico-tariffs-april-2/

And hopefully he would realize that this will just cause big trouble so let see if Trump would officially stop this crazy implementations they made.

I wonder if Trump and his goons understand, that cutting down regulatory oversight for food safety will cut the import of it as well. Counter tariffs don't even need to be about retaliation. They can stay up in the future as they will a unnecessary burden on health care.

Trump also blames that they don't see American cars in Europe, which is false. Europeans have bought Teslas in the past, but i am guessing that's over now because of Elon.
And main reason we aren't buying those big American cars is that they are so large that they don't even fit on our roads or parking spaces. I am not even joking. It's not like we are going to rebuild whole infra just to get those, especially with our current relations.

Then there are things like Europeans consider flashy big cars impractical in terms of fuel consumption. And that are also considered to be tacky and transparent compensation attempts for insecure people. I wonder if he would like to complain that we aren't buying as much maga hats as americans.

US is having the opportunity of doing all these because of the dominance USD has in the global market, that is why you can discover some of the reasons BRICS are trying to desociate themselves from the use of this global reserve currency called dollar and have their own separate ways, I do say it, if US is doing you favor, then check well and make some findings on the conditions around it, you will discover that it's more of harm to you than the help you think they are offering, I know that the issue of increase in the tarrif plan will cause a lot of exposures to things we don't pay much attention to before now but are happening.

I knew it would failed woefully because you don't go about threatening everyone at the same time and think they will all be on their kneels begging you without looking for alternatives. People will explore other alternatives or find a way of navigating through the system to remain profitable in business. Even if he wanted to raise the tariffs, he would have taken it one step at a time with less noise. What Trump failed to understand was that any hike in tariff would actually be paid by the American final consumers and not the people he claimed to be targeting because there was no way they would sell their goods at loss because they want to sell in the US. As you hike tariff, they simply raise the price of their goods and the consumers will bear the brunt. If Trump do not take time, the American people will be subjected to unprecedented hardship due to rise in the cost of living and I'm sure they will revolt against him and his policy.

Yes, and as I said the economic war in general started way before Trump took office the first time! Meaning mainly by Obama. The US regime keeps changing tactics and increase the pressure thinking they can strongarm others into obeying their demands!

The tariffs Trump set in his first term were continued by Biden and are still continued in Trump's second term. Their numbers have grown over the years as well. So we are seeing a trend of increasing deficit and inflation in the US.

Not exactly. For example with China:

_	|	2023	|	2024	|	Change
Imports	|	$426.8	|	$438.9	|	+$12.1
Exports	|	$147.7	|	$143.5	|	-$4.2
Deficit	|	$279.1	|	$295.4	|	+$16.3

If what Trump is doing is implementing a policy that the United States has been working on for years, then his method is very hasty and reckless to a large extent. Trump is practicing political blackmail to implement a plan that could destroy everyone, starting with the American economy. According to all experts, these tariffs will lead to a sharp decline in American economic growth, and the negative impact will extend for at least two years, with expectations of a decline in economic output.

Then, in this global situation, the United States is losing allies that will benefit China, whose markets will expand to Africa, Asia and the Americas.

I can understand that economic sanctions are a means of political blackmail and were used by the last US presidents, but it is certainly not the strategy that will reduce the trade deficit.

if you are zoomed in on 2024 stats saying "blame trump 2025".. i laugh
if you are slightly zoomed out to see 2023 to 2024 and say "blame trump 2016".. i laugh

heck i dont like trump, he is a clown, but you seem to be putting a paper straw into the dem's butthole and sucking up all you can

please remind yourself of all the economics of 2020-2024
EG covid.. sanctions. ukraine

did you know that alot of business boycotted trading with russia and china in 2020-2024 due to china helping russia fight ukraine 2020+
yep the US didnt want to be associated with china and russia so less exports from the US to russia-china area purely as a protest against the russian war
this was stuff not even "tariff" related.. but boycotts

..

anyway.. if you are also trying to insinuate that trump has made so many changes in the last 47 days that it has changed things already..
.. um nope. it takes time to see results, we have yet to see how things change good or bad yet.

heck. most tariffs have been "announced" from january, feb, march but didnt even actually start then.. most are not affective until april+.(Q2)
EG "reciprocal tariffs start april 2nd" (to negotiate new deals)
EG pause on USMCA tariff on autos (to get auto final assembly in the US)

so we wont see results until Q3 when they look back at Q2

also the tariff is not a $$ money sucker.. its actually a negotiation stick to get other deals in place
the trick was not to just charge consumers XX% and sit back.. it was to give a threat to other countries that unless they come to the negotiation table consumers would end up going elsewhere and not earning other countries their sales tax

anyway.. lets wait and see how things play out.. trump is playing a different game than he was playing in 2016 term.. seems he hired some better advisers this time, including speech writers(he is actually making sense and not rambling into wonderland per question this time)

..
oh and last fun fact
trump implemented more tariffs on china 2018 and the deficit 2018-2020 went from $400b to $300b so it seemed to have helped
oh by the way.. america has had less tariffs on china than china had on the US
yep US tariff-ed china at 3% but china tariffed US at 8% at the start of 2018 before things escalated

even with the "phase one agreement" that stabilised the trade war...
from 2020 china tariff on us export 21.3% average.. US tariff on chinese export 19.3%
by 2023 china only dropped to 21.1%..
so all along 2018-2023 china were more 'tariff as a stick' against US, the US were slapping china with a lighter stick
so china were stick whacking US more than US was whacking china..

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/03/08/06uwH.png

And there is another interesting nuance here - China cannot stop selling its parts for 100 dollars, because for an export-oriented economy, with huge explicit or implicit subsidies from the state, it would be like death. And other markets do not have the consumer characteristics to buy these parts for 100 dollars on a mass and regular basis, as the US can do. Nuances, they are everywhere :)

Exactly. The problem is that they have run out of time. 20-30 years ago, US was at its peak of power. USSR had just been dissolved and for the first time in history world was enduring unipolarity. For example when Bush wanted to invade Iraq and carry out massacres there, he could easily force everyone to cooperate and even contribute (eg. Ukraine that is playing the victim these days supplied one of the largest number of troops to slaughter Iraqi civilians).
Today, after 3 decades of ridiculously costly wars US regime started, not only they have run out of money (and are in debt) but others like China have gotten so far ahead that USA can never catch up.

This is why they feel they have no time to waste, therefore the hasty and reckless behavior that is pushing everyone away and forcing them to even retaliate! Specially because US is getting weaker every day and the unipolar world is long dead as we've entered a New World Order with multiple power poles.

I'm not blaming anyone specially since it doesn't matter who the puppet in Oval Office is, I am just narrating and analyzing. And if you like zooming out, you should really zoom out to truly see the trend of how this deficit has been growing.

1990 started with the deficit being $66 billion and ended by reaching $412 billion. Under W. Bush and his war of terror against the world that deficit set a new record at $816 billion before 2008 economic crash destroyed global trade and decreased that deficit temporarily to $504 billion. But the rising trend never changed. Today that deficit (2024) sits at $918 billion and rising rapidly.

During all these decades the US regime has been using various tactics to decrease that deficit (mainly trying to destroy the economy of other countries to stay ahead) and failing. One of their tactics have been tariffs that have failed to change that trend.
BTW tariffs at this point is mostly noise that Trump makes and mainly for weak countries like Canada and Europe that think themselves as allies of US; US regime's main tactic for more powerful countries is proxy wars (hint: Taiwan and Uyghur terrorists in east of China).

Countries like Russia, China, Iran, etc have survived Western sanctions. These nations are no longer scared of the US sanction threat because they have been able to diversify their trading partnership. They have been able to seek new markets that have enhanced mutual benefits. Canada, Mexico, and the European Union are shaking because of Trump's tariff because they have designed their economy to depend on the US in some major sectors.

Europe and other allies have always supported the US in coordinating tariffs on other countries. Now it is time for them to taste the poison they have helped prepare for others. It will be difficult for the US to whittle down the economic influence of China and India. The world is changing, and Trump is making it change fast.

I don't understand this sentence. Why is production in the colony expensive? By that logic, postal services and every type of local business shouldn't exist because it's too expensive compared to other countries. I think that if companies appreciate working class and lower salary for those who work in back, get highest pay and do nothing half of the working time, like product designers, developers, marketing specialists and so on, and they'll also lower profit margins, then they'll be very competitive.

heres an enlightening thought that will really get your goat

while you are worrying about the "deficit"
what if i told you there is no actual "deficit".. its just a statistic, given a dramatic label

its just a word that says another country gives more goods then takes.. the other country is under no obligation to take so much goods
if the UK does not want american chicken but america wants UK aberdeen angus beef so be it. .. supply and demand

no country should be forced to take american chlorinated chicken just to meet some mutual give:take balance
there is no deficit
its just a statistic, not an obligation to match

this is the part trump does have it wrong.. not the reciprocal tariffs, but the mindset that because america is not good at exporting, he believes other countries owe him and need to take his stuff by calling the imbalance of demand statistic a "deficit"

I get the idea, but what I want to understand is why they insist on pursuing a policy that will further isolate the United States from the rest of the world and deepen the dollar's crises, always considering that we are in a new multipolar world order. Logic dictates that America is aware of its crises, and if its power is declining, it should try to find a place for itself among these poles, rather than adopt a policy of bullying. With the exception of Europe, which finds itself facing Russia alone, all the other countries targeted by tariff sanctions will be lost to America and attracted to China, in addition to the disastrous consequences of these sanctions on the American economy itself.

It's a pipedream on the Trump's administration part to bring back manufacturing while maintaining costs and do no create any unbalances or something blowing up in the process.

Let's be clear, the reason we get to enjoy goods for a cheaper cost is (beside automation and other technological advancements) due cheap labor from either poorer countries or from developed countries (basically China) that have brutal policies where you either work or you face consequences that are worse than complaining about the conditions in which you are forced to work. That is basically a dictatorship. And so we profit from this situation by buying their cheap labor products which lower costs. In order to bring back all the manufacturing from China back to the west, the west needs to come up with a way to keep costs lower, or to raise people's wages without creating inflation. The only solution I see is that automation at some point will be so good that it will be even better than Chinese slave labor and thus the west will not need to finance what is basically a regime that is working to conquer them eventually, since China is obviously going for world domination. There is no way around this. You either create robots that work and outperform the chinese, or you will end up creating inflation of some sort. I don't see how there is a way to bypass the hard capped reality of cost of production. You need the cost of production to be low for the products to remain low when they are sold, and people in the west do not want to work like slaves with no rights, but they want the cheap stuff, well, they actually need it, since most people isn't rich enough to spend what made in US or made in EU products would cost as it stands.

This is what I do not understand. What gave them the idea that increased tariffs remove the deficit? What they should look to do is find a way to increase production and thereby increase exports. Why not focus on expanding your own economy instead of trying to reduce that of another country?
It's plain for all to see that with increased tariffs, all the companies need to do is transfer that cost over to the consumer and increase the price of their goods.

It's all about salaries and cost of living.
Cost of living in a lot of countries like China are a lot lower than USA, that means the salaries and minimum wage can be a lot lower. For example a Chinese worker can be paid as low as $1.3 per hour but an American worker has to be paid $7.25 per hour. That's is already a 5.5x higher cost of "reshoring".

In certain products this becomes even worse. Products like iPhones which China wanted to be produced inside China. They intentionally made it even cheaper to be produced inside China by manipulation and a lot of other tactics. If Apple were to transfer manufacturing back to the colony, they may go bankrupt!

You are also missing an important thing in the "if" above: US economy and oligarchs believe in capitalism and liberal economy. What you said is completely against that. Their sole objective is to maximize their own profitability (specially the 1%) not to care for the working class and reduce their profit margin. This is why each time there is the smallest problem we see these companies "downsizing" which is a fancy word for firing people.

Since you love simplifying complex stuff let me do that for you: If your salary is £2000 a month but your expenses are £2700 a month, that £700 deficit is not some statistic. It is a very real deficit and to reduce it you will have to do two things: cut costs and increase your income.

Despite the complexity of this subject the principle is the same when it comes to import/exports balance. Complexities such as the fact that dollar is the only fiat that is being printed out of thin air to be used internationally. An option other countries like UK don't have which is why that trade deficit is £28 billion instead.

The best description of US I've heard is this: They say this colony is like a parasite or a leech. In order to survive, it requires hosts to feed on. The more it feeds, the bigger and hungrier it gets. So it feeds more and more every day until it is too bloated and "bursts".
It's like Jabba the Hutt in the Star Wars thing, the most powerful criminal in the galaxy who fell victim to his own hubris :D

When the US regime has built itself based on bullying strategies for decades and when being the only superpower for 2-3 decades solidified that strategy and gave them the delusion of strength, it is impossible to change that now. Today they are utterly addicted to bullying others. It may be new to some countries like Canada and Europe but this has been US regime's attitude toward everyone from Africa and Asia for decades. They are now expanding (just like that parasite/leech that has grown huge for feeding too much, now needing more hosts).

Keep in mind that it is not like their bullying fails every time every where. Look at Arab dictators like Saudis for example. Trump tells them to "jump" they only ask "how high"! Same with Panama that abandoned Chinese investments that were helping their economy because of US regime's threats. Or even Ukraine that handed over their valuable resources to US after the recent bullying!
That worsens their delusion.

They are also in denial, they think their colony is still the only superpower and anything they demand must happen. They don't accept that we are in a New World Order in a multipolar world. Just look at how their so called "experts" are still in disbelief of how their "superpower" navy was defeated in the red sea at the hands of the poorest Arab country Yemen!

since you fell into the word trap of thinking that its a debt owed by other countries, let me simplify it

other countries are under NO OBLIGATION to take american goods
they is no debt, there is no contract that things have to be equal

nothing is equal in the real world
if another countries does not want american goods, so what! they just dont want it.

you fell deep into the label trap of thinking that another country owes america so needs to buy an extra $130b of goods from america
no country owes america to need to buy another $130b of goods. the 'deficit' is just word-salad


as for your silly analogy about salary
america are not spending 700 more than they have made.. you really have no idea

heres a better analogy

i as a brit decide i want $269 of Tennessee whiskey
an american wants to buy $400 of british aberdeen angus beef
both happy with what we want, so take just what we want

the DIFFERENCE is $131 . but thats it, its a number. it does not mean anyone now owes someone else something. we got what we wanted and we are happy with what we got, thats it, end of

..
another example
two neighbours both do garage sales to get rid of their kids toys
first neighbour notices the second neighbour has 40 pack of sealed pokemon cards for $1 each. so hands 2nd neighbour $40
nice deal, complete

2nd neighbour notices first neighbour has 2 action figures at $13.45 each so pays $26.90 for 2 action figures
nice deal, complete

there is no fight later on saying that 2nd neighbour owes a further $13.10 to 1st neighbour so second neighbour has to take extra things from first neighbour for a further $13.10 even if 2nd neighbour isnt interested in anything else

Trump's tariff policies are bound to fail. The main reason is that they aren't a product of serious study and analyses. It seems Trump doesn't know what he's doing. Decide now, study later seems to be the approach. They're like spur-of-the-moment policies or perhaps even products of emotional outburst.

He's like "Let's do it! Oh wait, shit, suspend it! Hey, let's get it back on! No, double it! Wait, cut it into half. Wait a second, only for this and not this. No, let's use the earlier rate. Hey, let's just pause it for now. But only for this. The other one continues."

Why can't he and his team sit down and study what they're going to implement, consider the impacts, consider the retaliations, the leverages, and so on?

he surprisingly does actually know exactly what he is doing and using them exactly as intended

the problem is that media has never really studied tariffs or mentioned them much in many decades, so get things wrong when trying to imply the intent of tariffs to viewers. which people then think trump must be doing it wrong because he isnt doing it the way media misunderstood

here is the thing, for decades countries that do other international duties that benefit a country get a preferential rate with that country. tariffs were and are not suppose to be a set a standard and fix it for decades. its suppose to be a trade deal carrot vs stick tool that adjusts and changes depending on the periods negotiations

most of the tariffs were ANNOUNCED in jan feb that he is going to use them as a carrot/stick giving other countries fair notice, with a implementation of april,
where negotiations for preferential treatment then occur and yes tariffs can and always have been subject to change depending on trade deals. but yea media isnt telling you how things actually work they just want to report the click bait fear factor version, because they are the news

You are very confused about what trade balance is and why having a deficit is bad. I never even mentioned debt although it is one of the consequences of having a trade deficit. Your examples are also too small scale.

When there is a trade deficit it shows that the country as a whole has become a bigger consumer than a producer. Which means jobs are being lost, specially when products that could be produced domestically are being imported. That increases the debt (both national and personal debt) and it slowly turns the economy into a debt-based economy which in long term can not be sustained.
There are other problems that you can find if you search it on google!

This is what US regime is desperately trying to fix. Although "Emperor Trump" believes in 2 century old ideas like Mercantilism but basically they are trying to decrease that deficit by decreasing imports (the reason for tariffs) and increasing domestic production therefore exports (the reason for "reshoring" thing they started a couple of years ago).

The main reason why it doesn't work (apart from retaliation by others and a couple of other reasons) is the dollar. They can't have an expensive fiat (ie. the USD having a high exchange rate) and compete on the international scene with products produced in countries with low exchange rate like China.

i have to laugh at you soo many times

your silly math would be a case if the deficit also included domestic sales whereby the deficit showed that domestic sales+exports was less than imports

EG imagine US had trillions of domestic sales, and had $400b imports and only $269b exports
on the whole scale of things.. the $131b deficit is meaningless in the big scale of trillions domestically.. so its you that is thinking "too small of scale"
for instance industries in america can increase jobs and production on a purely 'sell domestically' bases
so again the deficit is not a sign that the us is losing jobs within the us because the deficit does not even account for us domestic production

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oh and one last lesson

lets say an american buys $400 of chinese goods, at the yuan exchange rate $1: ¥6.35 ($400:¥2,540)
now lets say china keep their prices ¥2,540 but forex changed.. to say $1:¥7.24 (¥2,540:$350)

oh look china still got the yuan for goods but now the "deficit" is $50b less, yep US saved money purely due to forex
not due to china losing industry, not due to less jobs on china not due to china selling less goods.. but purely the forex rate

yep number of physical goods didnt change but the "deficit" changed by $50b in americas favour
so try not to say its due to increased US jobs or selling more goods or other things. when it can be simply math tricks of exchange rates

..
anyway my point is the "deficit" is a stat and a stat only. no one is obligated to buy extra goods if there is an imbalance favouring one country over another. if a country just doesnt want goods from X country, they just dont want it.. there is no owing or debt ..

and as said some of the change in "deficit" math is based purely on exchange rate. not jobs market or produce created/sold

My country is a huge consumer country and this is killing us. Local jobs that involve local services like working in supermarkets, in delivery and similar jobs, don't pay well, they don't pay enough to eat food and this is getting very unbearable because we import everything. We produce a very small amount of food and even that goes to other countries and in exchange we import cheaper but lower quality products.

Btw I believe that quality matters the most during production. For example, if Jeans is made in China, costs $10, is low quality but on the other hand there is an USA-made jeans that costs $50 but has a very high quality, I'd personally save money and buy expensive American jeans. My father has original American jeans that he still uses while every other Chinese jeans that he bought gets ripped very easily.

Real domestic production is very important for all countries to survive and have a healthy economy. Unfortunately with China flooding the international markets with cheap goods, the production in all countries have been affected because local production cannot compete; some more than others. This is where tariffs come in and can sometimes actually help.

We face the same challenges too, maybe not as bad as most countries but still challenging. In fact we entered a new year 3 days ago and this year was named "Investment in Production" and the general policy is to push the government in the direction of helping such domestic investments so that local production can grow and become "healthier". And that's very important, because people aren't just going to get off their fannies and start producing! Governments have to intervene and get things going.

But the difference is that our fiat exchange rate is low, cost of living is also low in comparison and minimum wage is unreasonably low which means stuff produced domestically are going to end up being cheap anyway. But it is not true in the USA because dollar is very expensive and the government is not lowering it and the cost of living over there is extremely high with wages also being high the production will be expensive even with tariffs!

I'm like that as well. Sometimes I even spend too much time finding a good brand (of anything not just clothes) and buy that even if it costs more. But not everyone can afford to pay more money (like 5x for a pair of jeans) for the stuff they buy. Majority of the population of the world are middle class and that is why Chinese economy thrives so much. The demand existed already, they just produced the supply.

 propaganda.

the musky trumpeter did not activate tariffs by the dates you are using.

and people know that tariffs were coming rushed to buy in january.

The tariffs should have real numbers for april or may.

So you pretty much were and still are talking out of proper time context.

now I am usa based. but I am not a fan of trump.

but you really should not create false narrative because you are anti USA 🇺🇸

I can look at the map and tell you we are in a world wide alignment in which usa and russia and northern countries are looking to melt the icecaps mostly to fuck China 🇨🇳 india Pakistan 🇵🇰  and Bangladesh 🇧🇩

Frankly I am rooting for aliens to take over and run the place as people including myself are really fucked up.

As I've pointed out in the post you quoted the tariff war was started by the US regime quite a while ago. The Emperor wannabe Trump is only continuing it with his own methods as a loudmouth with lots of threats and chest-pounding. Therefore the data I linked here is as the title says about the "US Tariff War" not "Trump's Tariff War".

Although I can argue that Trump's approach is the threats themselves not the tariffs. Meaning he wants to threaten others to decrease the deficit and even that is already backfiring.

It was a bad strategy,  there was already a deficit even before he increased the tariffs, and it only got worse. Trump was so reckless; he just pushed through with what came to his mind without fully thinking it through.

He’s just a new president, a lot of policies needs to be reviewed first carefully, he should’ve at least studied the problem and assessed whether his actions were appropriate. Now, what’s going to happen if he decides to withdraw the tariff increase, knowing that it hasn’t helped at all?

You can't compare a postal service with the insane supply chains involved in manufacturing more complex goods like industrials and technology. Just to make a piece of a car, in order to achieve competitive prices in the US, the same part will to from the US, to Mexico, to Canada and back to the US, this is well documented, and this is why tariffs are inflationary in practice in a globalized economy. Too many moving parts, and so you are introducing friction in all this process by increasing cost of import/export dynamics. In order to equalize this and get competitive-prices in a post-tariff environment, the supply chain needs to change, and they will need to come up with a way to supply the gap that is created by dispensing with all the cheap labour and all the more efficient manufacturers that you are pretending to replace with locally-made goods or services. This may take years to adjust if it's possible, and this may cause a recession, which may or not cause a considerable crash in the stock market.

When you become a billionaire, you are losing the sense of reality, especially when you use dopaminergic drugs (most of the rich people do). Trump is a billionaire, he recently won elections at the age of 78, escaped the Prison, has all the power in the USA, he thinks that he is a god because just one thing is enough to get his wish fulfilled.

I do not compare a postal service to the manufacturing, I'm simply saying that it's insane when they say that they move production in other countries because its expensive locally. If that's really the case, then why do they design iPhone in California? Isn't it better to hire people from China to design your iPhone? If you can manufacture them in China, I'm sure you'll find very talented designers among one billion people who will do it 100x cheaply and as good as current ones do.

I completely understand what you say, my point simply is that manufacturing locally is a better thing to do. First of all, all the manufacturing technology and secrets stay within your country. You can create a quality product over crap product and in the end, iPhone made this way will be much cheaper than creating a new one every year in China but capitalism sucks very much in this case and they intentionally do it to profit as much as possible even if the damage to the environment doesn't outweigh pros.

designing is the cheapest task, which makes the cost irrelevant in the big scheme of things
EG making a decision to go with X GB or Y GB, and have it as 'rose gold' instead of silver case for different models is just management decision. you dont need to hire outsiders for that.. if you know you are going to make 1billion phones to can spread the management decision costs into a billion small costs spread per phone which become less than a penny per phone cost for design

the making of the actual phone is the costly part.. where by if mostly made parts are chinese and its all shipped to the US for a quick 5 minute US assembly, to be classed as made in US, then gets the benefits of cheap parts but made in US status to skip passed tariffs

Designing is not some kid with a whiteboard doodling shapes. It is Research and Development or R&D which can be the most expensive part of production depending on the design. So it has to be analyzed on a case by case basis, you can't say it is cheapest step by default.

Then they add tariffs on those parts and make it a lot more expensive or maybe China retaliates and sells it at a higher price to US to make it more expensive so that they can't compete. ;D

But with all that aside you are forgetting the other objective of this economic war which is to weaken China and its massive economy. The US regime can not weaken China if they are still buying cheap parts made in China because that would still strengthen Chinese economy...

I would assume they refuse to outsource design due security reasons. Why would you risk that it gets designed too by China? they just want the cheap labor to get the parts done and sell at better margins, as well as to stay competitive vs Chinese phone market itself, since if you were to pay the wages that the chinese get for manufacturing the same phones in the west, there would be protests that they are being exploited basically. People don't want to do those time consuming tasks for peanuts, they will demand better wages and conditions, rights and so on, things that you can bypass in china, since it's either you work or you get sent into the gulag. Ideally we would want everything done here for security purposes too, but it is what it is for now. I guess they must be really sure that they aren't getting backdoors installed on the parts that are manufactured in china and analyze each part before assembly.

And beside china, the materials used for the phones often come from really cheap african mines. So good luck getting those margins with western miners. It's all a game of reducing cost on the goods. If everything was made and obtained in the west, prices would go up, I don't see a way around this for now.

'then they add tariffs'??
are you really this ignorant? you have been told a dozen times how the avoid tariffs, heck i just gave you an example which you just quoted..
seriously please go learn about freeports..


when america move parts to the US its not a fully assempled end product. thus china cant get sales tax from selling retail priced goods
when america put a tarriff on chinese finished goods, it makes chinese FINISHED goods more expensive to deter americans fro buying retail from china
(bothcases decrease chinas income of sales tax because people buy less chinise retail ready goods)
america does not get any tariff from chinese parts when using freeports

when america get parts that are lower cost than american made parts, america can assemble them to a retail ready good for american merchants.. so that america get the sales tax but without the tariff. thus making it cheaper to buy american for american consumers compared to american consumers buying from china

i seriously wish you would learn the economics of how this stuff plays out if you wish to continue injecting yourself into the conversation.
learn the freeport business model

Your problem is that you assume they are imposing tariffs only to increase their revenue. Whereas in reality the main objective is to prevent stuff from being imported so that they can beef up domestic production and save their economy. If they allow them to enter through freeports that would defeat that purpose.

Those parts are cheap because China decides to sell them to US cheap. If the war gets intensified more, one of the decisions the Chinese can make is to stop selling them cheap parts. It's not really that complicated.

Just review the recent history of the "chip war". In short US regime prevented chips and the technology to make them to be sold to China and China prevented rare material used in chip production from being sent to them and then developed their own domestic chip production technology which has now reached the Western competitors.

You are also forgetting that US is not just trying to compete with Chinese products domestically. But also internationally which is why they need domestic production to work. China has already taken over a lot of markets like automotive industry for example which is currently singlehandedly largest in the world with 30 million units produced per year taking the market out of the hands of US, Germany and Japan which were once dominating the market.

I just hope that Trump is not doing this to scalate things into a potential war so he can profit from having moved all production locally. There are some theories now of people claiming that the most pessimistic scenario is just that: Trump getting ready for a war-economy in which they would be the suppliers of many goods that wouldn't be available anymore elsewhere. They say that this may happen on his last year of the term and then try to keep himself in power. I used to believe those are conspiracy theories from the left but I think Trump is going to have an ego power trip that will increase as time goes on even more and he will think that he is doing the right think "to save america", including breaking any ways which he has already pointed to. I think we will see fireworks by 2029 unfortunately. The next years for the market are going to suck with this uncertainty unless we climb the wall of worry, but if Trump tries something stupid to stay in power the markets are going to tank like we haven't seen since GFC.

Im not an expert nor am i trying to say if i believe it will or will not work.  But you need time to play out to see if its working or not.  Immediately there might be some instant adverse effects.  If it persists month over month then yeah might be an issue.  Crazy how many things changed so quickly.  In the end i dont think it will work as this administration intended.

trump does not care about how many cargo ships of goods arrive.. what trump wants is consumers to use US retailers to buy goods that are labelled US Made so he can get the sale tax into the treasury
or if people still want imports meaning no sales tax.. but then he will get tariffs off the consumer instead..

however when it comes to manufacturing. he and businesses know raw material mining in the US -> finished good in the US will be expensive goods, which consumers wont want.
so there is the middle ground (via the freeport business model)
china would charge more on finished "ready for retail" goods being sent to the US.. but again (please please please learn about the freeport business model, it will help accelerate this conversation along instead of having to re-teach you in every post) if they do the freeport business model they can do things cheaply and avoid chinese government getting greedy in multiple ways

lets use the chips as a example to explain the quote above and below
previously US chip makers had to refine raw silica, smelt it, form it into ingots, cut, etch and polish it then fabricate it.. all costly if all done in the US

but if TSMC have a chinese facility, they can use chinese facility to do the first 2/3rds cheaply.. and because they done it cheaply in their chinese facility why would they then charge THEMSELVES(at the US facility) more just to send it to the US??.. reality is they are the same company on both sides of the ocean, so they will send it across the water 'at cost'

30m cars a year is only 2.11% of chinese population (2.11% per capita)
thats like saying the US only does 7m cars.. oh wait the US actually makes 10.5m cars(3.18% per capita)... soo cars per domestic populous made per year, US wins

You seem to be on an entirely different page. In this topic (which you didn't read) and the comment you quoted (which you also didn't read) we are discussing how various plans including tariff war has failed to shrink the trade deficit. We are NOT discussing how they can increase domestic usage of their products for "per capita" rates to matter.

One of their plans to shrink it is that they want to export more not have their products used domestically more! Also as I said in my comment they want to compete with China internationally and push China out as an economic war to slow down Chinese growth. They can't compete if they are exporting about 1.4 million units (used to be 2.2 mil in 2014) and China exports over 6 million units and growing every year.

P.S. South Korea with 50 mil population is producing 4-5 millions units a year how much is that per capita :P

Interestingly, it is not only that, there is also a governmental spending that you need to consider for government spending too, which comes to same logic with inflation. Trade deficit and government spending are two main reasons why a countries currency could get worse, and USA also has that too.

Deficit for USA being high could just mean they have money to spend, and others don't, which makes sense. They are not selling as much, because other nations aren't as rich as USA, and USA keeps buying, because they are richer than others. That is a simple mathematics, and if one day USA can't afford to keep buying from others, they just won't, and deficit would fall, but until they can't, they are going to keep spending their money.

maybe you dont realise this, but i have read it all. understood it all, run things through scenarios, used economic theory on it and came to a different conclusion then you, thus not congratulating you on your small ability to take something from the news... because its you that just took something from the news but do not understand the content or the real concerns or risks or effects to an economy due to the item mentioned in the news

maybe you dont realise im suggesting something to get you thinking, to get you to ponder further thought and dig a little deeper..

you might be trying now to scratch your head as you hit the reply button to shout things like im baiting you into a trap or other insults obscenities to avoid thinking deeper at the subject matter(as usual),.. well i kind of am baiting you. but more so trying to get you to look/think deeper at the subject and to get you to do some research.. or atleast some further maths by looking at things from a different angle so you can put things into context outside the click bait news narrative you are just repeating but not fully knowing of

..
oh fine ill spoil it for you(theres multiple points that can come from this, .. oh yep the bait and hook has many casts)
if a country's population only employs 1.3% in the car industry and makes 10.5m cars.. ill let you do some math
if another country's population employs 0.3% in the car industry and makes 30m cars.. ill let you do some math
it reveals their production efficiency
($ ~4.4m workers making 10.5m cars = 2.38 cars per worker)
(¥ ~4.2m workers making 30m cars = 7.14 cars per worker)

if a country that only manually makes say 10.5 cars per 340 population, then the demand for/efficiency of making/capacity of/excess of cars would be different to
if a country that only manually makes say 30 cars per 1411 population,
can reveal how efficient they can make cars but with less labour
can reveal the amount they are able to spare(after domestic demand) to then export

(i have other conclusions and baits which could have progressed the conversation down the economic conversation, but im getting too ahead of you in the economics to even try progressing the conversation)

anyway depending on how you answered my response about the 2.11% of capita and the 3.18% of capita would have shown what way you are thinking of things and if you even bothered thinking or even took the stats and run scenarios on..  and would result in how i progress the conversation.. but as usual you went down the excuse rabbit hole to not think in terms of economics and instead found an excuse to just fling an insult by saying im not even talking about the topic

when actually it was a bait point to then come back and remind you that if a country can only produce X cars per worker or only makes x cars per populous then the amount of cars available beyond the domestic demand affects the amount of cars needed to be imported to fill the demand. and how many

if country only makes Z but has domestic demand Y then it only has excess X to export and needs W imported
Z+/-W=Y
Z-Y= +/-X
Z-Y= +/-W
..
so it very much does need to know the domestic supply/demand to judge how things affect the import/export efficiency/deficiency

oh yes deficit is deficient as in opposite to efficient.. its not deficit as in debt/owing like you and media conclude
just because a country takes 400 but only gives 269 does not mean the other country needs/owes/required/indebted to take 130 extra just to be in balance
another country does not owe the deficient country. if asians just dont want american cars, they simply dont want them

it all would be clear if you try a little to run some scenarios and do some maths beyond just going with the emotions of a click bait stat which you didnt fully understand the economics at play of

..
now concentrating on the 2.11:3.18 'per capita' thing
the US make more cars per populous so YOU would conclude there should be more excess to export(bait).. however..(hook incoming)
..  the demand domestically is higher for those domestic cars, so the excess is lower, so much so that they actually need imports to fill the demand
so the w x y z equation needs to be looked at where Z affects X (deeper: how Y also affects X, which affects the X to W balance... but seems your not ready to talk about these things)

It's not really the cheapest task, it still costs them billions of dollars but my point is that, since they are so focused on saving money, why don't they save on the team that works on Apple Ecosystem? Maybe I'm wrong but I think that Apple can get the same level of ecosystem by hiring Chinese designers and developers instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to local workers.

I understand what you want to say but my focus here is also on other things. I think that in the end, the USA can manufacture so good smartphone with such a good price tag that it will be cheaper than the ones made in China but sadly the USA doesn't force companies to do that and this approach of capitalism bring no good to the country to my mind. If the USA produces smartphones locally, they'll create a new job for local citizens, the quality of the product will be superb instead of cheap (that's what everyone expects), which means that your smartphone will last for 10 years instead of 3-4 years. Over time, manufacturing process will advance enough to create a good working conditions and also keep the local workers skilled for the job, it's a win to my mind. Today, China produces almost everything and is that really good? Won't the US pay for moving manufacturing into China? I think that they'll pay for this mistake and it will cost more than what they saved. It's just my opinion, correct me if you think I'm wrong.

the iphone designers are american. they then send the design to a chinese factory that then get the parts needed
so its the parts and assembly that have costs

if the parts and costs were all american the iphone price would increase by alot more

lets make this simple
lets say an iphone retails at $999 and lets say they make 1 billion phones.. thats $1trillion

now lets go extreme.
lets say they have 20 designers and each paid $10million each
that is $200m

now out of the $1trill, $200m is just 0.02%.. meaning of the price tag per iphone its $0.02 per iphone

yet the battery, is alot more than $0.02 per iphone
so the parts are more important part of the cost equation than the cost of the designers

if you consider the labour cost of minimum wage is like a US6.5:1CNY rate meaning every activity needing labour in the US is 6.5x that of china. the parts if made fully from US raw material will be 6.5x chinese raw material, if you look at the fabricating of chips us 6.5x more then china
so going from raw material to finished retail ready phone all america would be alot more than chinese.


smart companies do the best of both worlds.. they do and will do most the manufacturing in cheap countries. and send the PARTS to the US to automated assembly machines in the US to then be classed as made in america to then distribute from US assembly bay in the US to US merchants to sell to US customers to get US sales tax, no tariffs, and no sales tax going to china, and all done without making the whole production 6.5x


phones dont die much due to quality, but built in expiry of features, causing people to need to upgrade phone just to stay upto-date with latest OS that is required for the latest apps.   yes iphones are easy to drop and crack. but thats more about physics of stiff THIN objects that dont bounce. secret is.. dont drop it

you mean from china. as most of iphones are not using US parts so far..

forgive me if im wrong but current scenario for the last decade+ is parts are asian and always have been.. are you suggesting raw material->parts and all assembly have been US based all along (from raw material  retail ready phone).. or was it a grammatical error on your part

anyway. moving things TO USA wont cost as much as you think, nor take as long as you may think
in most cases many freeports already have empty warehouse space pre-build ready to lease, whereby all a company needs to do is move the final assembly machines of final phase production, which can reach the US within a month, thus be operational within a few months in the new business model as oppose to building a whole raw->retail production base which would take years and come with huge costs

If you move the parts and manufacture them in the US, then the cost will go up so much that the result will be:

1) Locals will have to pay more in order to keep up with the increased costs of not using chinese slave labor/any other country where it's incredibly cheap compared to western standards

2) Some people may be willing to pay the increased price in order to support their made-in-US products, but a number of other people that probably is considerable, will end up buying chinese brands which will continue to be manufactured in China like Xiaomi, Redmi, Oppo... they are already competing with western brands

And so the end result may be that you end up helping China to increase their sales. For this to work, the retail price must not increase, or not increase considerably to the point this plan backfires. I hope it works since I don't like made-in-China stuff being everywhere, but im just realistic and for now, until AI can replace slave labor, it's hard to compete with non-democratic countries.

That is what sets USA apart. When for example your country prints your local currency, that fiat is only used by your people inside your country. When the US government prints the dollar, that dollar is used globally and also they force or scam many countries to buy their debt when the printed it. So they can create money out of thin air and then purchase stuff from others therefore exporting their inflation.

This is why the world dedollarized the first time back in 1970s but failed because they introduced a bigger and more serious scam named Petrodollar and this is exactly why over the past years the world has been on a dedollarization path.

To me it's not strange because from the time trump was busy campaigning about placing some countries on tariffs on imported goods I know it was going to have some negative effects on the Americans economy because these countries too will respond because already there are information about Canada,Mexico and China also imposing tariffs on goods exported to the United States of America, so this tariffs that the trump administration is imposing on some countries is an ill thought plan that will negatively affect America especially when it comes to the economy

In just two months, the US trade deficit has increased by more than $300 billion, and not only that, Trump's trade war has caused consumer sentiment to collapse. And according to a recent poll, his supporters in the election are optimistic that the US economy will improve under Trump.  They are becoming skeptical and even disapproving of his trade war ideas.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/02/loPGd.png
https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1905631072328560938

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/02/lozH2.png
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5223398-trump-tariffs-trade-wars-economy-canada-mexico-china/



According to previous news, today (April 2), Trump will announce a series of new tariffs on all goods imported into the United States. Let's wait and see what happens and how other countries will react.

Competition is definitely the problem in every country but I'll explain you what happens in my country. Turkey is a huge competitor of us in our own market, we import food from Turkey but export our food in Russia and Europe, we either sell low quality agricultural products in Russia or sell organic products in EU.

The problem is that we buy cheap, low quality products from Turkey, which is not as healthy as our well-farmed products. We have always been producing high quality agricultural products. My lecturers were mostly in the government. I asked one of my lecturer about why we buy low quality turkish fruits and vegetables instead of producing our high quality products ourselves for our people. His answer was that Turkey is cheap, we save money by buying them and on top of that, we make more money by selling organic products in Europe. This was his answer and that saddened me. Btw no offence to Turkey or any other country, I know you have very good products, I only am sad that we import the worst quality of products and kill local agriculture.

Btw another problem that I noticed is that local businessmen want to become rich overnight. We have a mentality of buying a locally produced products but local businessmen set such a high prices that it's impossible for average family to buy them, that's why local businesses fail, they want to become rich overnight. Apartments here are more expensive in many other wealthy and rich countries but the apartment owner will wait for months and loss all the profit but won't lower the price of rental.