candycorn
Diamond Member
Subscribe to read | Financial Times
Earlier this year, the US president expressed fury about the size of America’s bilateral trade deficit with China and imposed escalating tariffs on $250bn worth of Chinese imports. The assumption inside the White House was that this would cause the deficit to shrink, since American companies would produce more goods at home and/or find ways to avoid costlier imports.
But that theory has not played out — or not yet. Far from it. Last week the US government released data showing that America’s deficit in traded goods with China jumped 4.3 per cent in September to a seasonally adjusted level of $37.4bn, a record high. This was due to a thumping 8 per cent rise in American imports from China. Exports, however, remained broadly flat.
Tarrifs not working it seems.
I drove by the port over by where I used to live in Houston not too long ago. Containers stacked taller than the freighters next to them; rows and rows.