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I don’t have any special reason to post this except for the fact that trade is very much in the news following Donald Trump’s election victory. For the record, then, here’s the US trade deficit since 1980:
And just for extra fun, here’s the same chart excluding trade with China and imports of crude oil:
The main lesson here is that the US trade deficit hasn’t been spiraling out of control for the past decade. It’s been declining. And practically all of it for the past five years has been accounted for by oil and China.
