Trump’s Latest False Claim About the U.S.-China Trade Deficit

The total U.S. trade deficit with China in goods and services in 2023 was about $252 billion, the lowest it has been in 14 years. Former President Donald Trump was way off when he falsely claimed that the U.S.-China trade gap is about four times as high. “Right now, we have the largest deficit we’ve ever had with China, like over a trillion dollars,” Trump said in an interview for Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show,” which was posted online June 3. “Think of how bad that is. Too much. You can’t sustain that.”Trump made the claim when talking about his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “He respected me,” Trump said, claiming that “they don’t respect” President Joe Biden “at all.”While Trump portrays bilateral trade deficits as a negative, many economists do not believe that they necessarily are. For example, Robert Z. Lawrence and Yeling Tan, the lead authors of a strategic brief for the Global Future Council on International Trade and Investment, said the ideas that “trade deficits are bad” and “[b]ilateral trade between countries should be balanced” are misconceptions.Regardless, Trump was wrong about the size of the imbalance in exports and imports between the U.S. and China...