August 3, 2018

Trump Trade Deficit Keeps Soaring

Ha ha ha. The latest trade deficit numbers are out for the second quarter, and Donald Trump still can’t get it right:

It keeps going up and up! Other countries are laughing at us! Even that weakling Obama had a better trade deficit! What a pathetic performance from Donald Trump. He’s just making America weaker and weaker.

POSTSCRIPT: This is a joke. Nobody should really care if the trade deficit is going up a bit. What’s more, if Trump were ever smart enough to look at the complete figures for goods and services, it turns out that the trade deficit went down slightly this quarter. Of course, that would force Trump to admit that (a) services are actual things (b) our annual trade deficit is about $500 billion, not $800 billion, (c) our trade deficit with China is closer to $300 billion than $400 billion, and (d) we have a trade surplus with Canada

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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