As the government on Tuesday reported that the American trade deficit contracted by nearly 10 percent in February, analysts noted<br />that exports from the United States had been aided by a recent weakening in the value of the dollar, which makes American goods cheaper on world markets.<br />In the case of the United States, trade deficits with the world have been a feature of economic life for more than three decades, a sweep of time<br />that has seen economic booms, the worst downturn since the Great Depression and plenty of events in between.<br />Back in the 1980s, it was Japan that played the boogeyman in the American political conversation, the goliath<br />believed to be gobbling up American prosperity with every Sony Walkman it sent toward American shores.<br />Despite tremendous economic advances, China remains a relatively low-income country, home to hundreds<br />of millions of people who cannot afford the more sophisticated fruits of the American economy.<br />China’s trade surplus with the United States, which reached $347 billion last year, does in part reflect dubious Chinese practices, including lavishing state credit on favored exporters<br />and flooding world markets with low-cost goods to keep its laborers employed.<br />The Trump administration faces the problem that China’s high trade barriers are allowed by the World Trade Organization,<br />because China entered the group as a developing country and insists it still is one.<br />Now, with Mr. Trump in the White House, much of human civilization has seemingly been cast as the predator class — Germany, Mexico,<br />China, willfully fleecing Americans through a series of trade deals extended by a Washington elite too clueless to fight them.
