Trade Deficit Quotes

By definition, by reducing our trade deficit we will be hurting consumers. Consumers are always better off with a trade deficit.

We are on pace this year to have a trade deficit that is larger than $800 billion. We have never faced that before, but we continue to put forward trade agreements like these that leave us naked to competition that is neither free nor fair.

That means we get other countries to play by our rules. You add up all the countries that we have trade agreements with, we have a surplus with them. You add up the countries we do not have a trade agreement with, that's where a massive trade deficit comes from. So our goal is to get free trade agreements, and that means we get other countries to play and live by our rules so we can level the playing field.

Today, we have a trade regime which has led to the largest trade deficits this country has ever experienced.

Essentially, when we run a deficit, we are borrowing money to buy things that are made overseas.

If trade deficits are good, why is China so pleased that they run a huge trade surplus? It's perfectly obvious that if China hadn't been such a huge net-exporter, it never would have grown at the rate that it did.

We're losing our companies; we're losing jobs; they devalue us out of business - China and these other countries.

Don't make such a big deal out of this trade deficit…. In the United States you cannot find anybody to produce such labor-intensive products and it will be more expensive if you were to import such products from other countries and the regions than China. Only China is in the best position to produce such products, and this is also beneficial to China because this has provided job opportunities to China.

U.S. capital formation, which has been pretty high in the '90s and very high in the late 1990s, is what is being financed by the savings of the rest of the world, generally poorer than ourselves, because our deficit on current account, chronic deficit, is their surplus, and they have been willingly bringing that to the American market.

[Donald Trump] is been very consistent on trade.

We've become a debtor nation. I don't mean just on fixed-loan terms, but we own increasingly less abroad than is owned from abroad here.

With open markets, the nation's trade deficit with China would shrink as we export more natural gas and agricultural products and as China's consumers could afford to buy their preferred 'Made in America' products.

Now, given the experience that we have had thus far, with our subsequent trade agreements with NAFTA and others, you would think that with our experience of job loss that we have had there that when you find yourself in a hole that you might stop digging.

During the 1999 debate over Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China President Bill Clinton said, 'In opening the economy of China, the agreement will create unprecedented opportunities for American farmers, workers and companies to compete successfully in China's market. WRONG: Our trade deficit with China has increased from $83 billion in 2001 to a record breaking $342 billion in 2014.

I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I've been challenged by so many people, and I don't frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don't win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody... We need strength, we need energy, we need quickness and we need brain in this country to turn it around.

Historically, large-scale global trade has served two functions: 1) the exchange of goods between willing sellers and buyers described in Econ 101 textbooks; 2) as a tool of state aggrandizement, in which the private parties are stand-ins for governmental interests.

Years of passivity and drift among U.S. policymakers have allowed the U.S. - China trade deficit to grow to the point where is widely recognized as a major threat to our economy.

[Barack] Obama administration, the [George W.]Bush administration have done nothing. And as China has manipulated its currency, we've lost trillions of dollars of wealth and millions of good-paying jobs.

The more competitive value of the dollar turned around the trade deficit.

Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.

The balance of trade is an article of faith.

I find it highly amusing that Donald Trump talks about "Make America Great Again." He doesn't make a thing in America, except bankruptcies.

There are several silver linings on the horizon. The current account deficits in Spain and Portugal are declining because they have become more competitive and they're exporting more.

The British merchants represented that they received some profit indeed from Virginia and South Carolina, as well as the West Indies; but as for the rest of this continent, they were constant losers in trade.

Naturally the U.S. trails in gold medals because every time we win one, we hand it over to the Chinese to pay off our debt.