in the last year I've stopped buying any product from american companies if there is another viable supplier, even if it costs more
heinz, coca-cola, five guys, goodyear (I needed new tyres), aws/gcp, lays, mars, ... all removed entirely
Although these food products are often regionalized.
I hadn't realised quite how many "UK" brands were owned by US conglomerates
a scarily high percentage
However, you're not paying 3x. I assume you're not really paying anything notably higher than x, right? So the encouragement is nearly zero.
maybe a quarter?
the rest will be a "licensing fee", which goes straight to Atlanta, Georgia
(well, now it doesn't)
So now you're tied up to Trump even more than before. Because you either traded your goods for US investments, or just pieces of paper that only continue to be worth something insofar as the US doesn't bungle their economic and geopolitical policies. Because those are the primary alternatives to settling the trade by getting goods/services back.
Why wouldn't you want to cash out and actually get stuff back from the US for the stuff you make for them, if you think the US is headed south? It's not like you're exporting to the US as a charity.
to hell with the economic consequences
as a brit, I wouldn't be buying German products in 1939 either
Obviously all the countries not choosing to settle it by balancing the imports with equally valued exports are still not just donating that difference away, so it must be going somewhere.
What did you think that must be? The only option is they must have kept that capital in the US if they didn't export the balance of their trade back out. Kept it in the US because for whatever reason they decided to invest it there rather than get goods/services in immediate exchange or invest in their own country. By increasing the trade deficit you're literally going stronger in on investing in what America is doing.
Yes, countries do not export goods as charity to the US. They get to hodl the Dollar. This huge demand for the Dollar has made it possible to print so many of them and still keep the value, giving the US a big advantage over any other currency.
But who is responsible for the trade deficit anyway? It's the US consumer, of course. No one is forcing them to buy all this stuff.
Now imagine yourself in the shoes of a poor country exporting textiles to the US. What are you to do to make the US administration happy? You can't afford American products, so your only choice is to stop selling to the US? How does that make any sense or help anyone?
Supporting local businesses and moving away from globalization, which you also seem to support, is a good move for everyone.
Generally the framework is:
Buy local/shop at neighborhood businesses preferably selling American-made products or at least western products. When traveling we try to do the same in the country we are located in, but obviously not perfect about it.
Buy American generally, including online retailers. The smaller and more local the producer the better. Try and identify American companies that are trying to source from good/ethical suppliers like Patagonia, and avoiding Chinese-owned ones (Arteryx RIP).
Buy western - so that's your silk ties from Italy (something like E.& G. Cappelli), maybe French wine, you get the picture. My tires are Michelin and they are fantastic. I understand that the people on the Internet from Europe are really mad at the US (most folks generally don't care at all) but I'm not holding that against them. Same for Canada of course.
Reluctantly purchase computers/phones and such made in China simply because there's no alternative.
Awful products (Five Guys, Lays chips, &c.) are generally avoided even if they're American. Same applies globally. There's no hard and fast rule here for me, but those are some of the general considerations. OP if you like Five Guys style you should try making at home. A great burger isn't too hard to pull off for MUCH cheaper!
The article seems reactionary. Imports increasing, for example, maybe be due to temporary (or even permanent!) purchases from ex-US suppliers for things like increasing manufacturing capacity here in America. Obviously the effects and reconfiguration of the global economy isn't going to happen overnight.
Mainstream economists have broadly always said that the trade deficit is a good thing for the United States (I can't tell you the number of NPR and Planet Money podcasts with experts I've listened to that have said as much, and also thank you, OP) because it means we're consuming more and receiving more investment and we're trading worthless dollars for the consumption of goods. If you also aligned with the mainstream economics view that tariffs are bad, you'd likely look at an increasing trade deficit with tariffs in place as a very good outcome at least in some respects.
yes, this is the traditional position
but the underlying assumption is that USD remains the world reserve currency
and there's now an entire western hemisphere no longer interested in maintaining that
Well the USD is one of the world's reserve currencies, not the only one, though of course it's the dominant one. A reserve currency is just a currency that central banks or other significant financial institutions hold "in reserve" for liquidity purposes and so on. Even if the USD was no longer the dominant one, which isn't necessarily great, it hasn't seemed to have been that big of a problem for the EU.
I also don't think there's an entire western hemisphere that is no longer interested in maintain "that". Despite online noise, and a few symbolic selling of treasuries, nothing has really changed. You have to remember that politicians, including EU politicians talk a different game to the public than they do when they're sitting in rooms together at Davos or wherever. There are other considerations. How good for the EU will it be if the US collapses into financial ruin (it won't)? Who is going to backstop their militaries against Russia or other bad actors? The EU can say well we're going to go sell all these treasuries, well they become worth less and less and collapse the global economy. All you hear about on the Internet is the US's dirty laundry. It's the same thing with China and their military and economy. Most people can't speak about their failures because they're not aware, we only talk about the United States (and EU and others of course) and those failures and we don't speak in terms of incentives and actions and reactions.
"China has hypersonic missiles the US Navy is doomed!" is often parroted - yet who can speak intelligently to what the United States has done to negate or address that concern? Very few. Why is that? Well we're all reading the same articles about China's capabilities - it's propaganda.
I also don't see the USD going anywhere, anytime soon since the US military enforces the petrodollar system. But sure let's talk about some Swedish pension fund selling $50bn (7% of Elon Musk's net worth - screw that guy) worth of treasuries and call that the death of the United States economy.
Please don't take this as a defense of objectively bone-headed things the United States is doing either, I'm just pointing out that it's much more complicated than what your comment seems to suggest.
this isn't the aim
the aim is to decouple enough so you can't be blackmailed
which unfortunately is quite a herculean task, but hey, you've gotta start somewhere
> The EU can say well we're going to go sell all these treasuries, well they become worth less and less and collapse the global economy.
they won't sell them simultaneously, because that would be crazy
but they will change their portfolio allocations over time in response to these new risks made obvious from the hourly yelling out of the white house
which increases US funding costs, decreasing its competitiveness, which is a vicious circle
if it goes on long enough, other trading partners won't want to be paid in dollars at all
Instead the EU is engaging in increasingly protectionist activity to build more domestic industry. I don't have a problem with that, but I'm also more on the protectionist side given the current state of global affairs and the need for the US to decouple from China - or is it only the EU that gets to decouple from a major trading partner and the US isn't allowed? At least that's what is parroted on the Internet. :)
* Just a quick note, there's a lot of uproar on the Internet over Greenland. Deservedly. But if the EU "decouples" from the US, there's no incentive for the US to not, for example, take over Greenland. These are the kinds of push-pull engagements that are continually failed to take into account by most commentaries and in most discussions. Again it's centered around what the EU will do, or what China will do, and so forth and the analysis never makes it past this, despite the most important activities happening downstream from initial activities.
* I'm an Ukraine hawk - US should have went straight to war with Russia over the invasion - being overly simplistic here but just to illustrate my hawkish-ness. But the EU is sitting here telling us it's this huge problem that Russia is invading Ukraine, yet they're happy to increase cooperation and trading with China who is providing support to Russia for their invasion? Of course, these things are all part of a negotiating mix. Maybe increasing trade will help China stop helping Russia's war against Ukraine, but if we wanted to stop analysis at the very first thing we see as everyone seems to want to do with respect to the EU or China, we could just look at that activity and say, well, maybe we shouldn't help the EU here and if they really think Ukraine is a problem they should take these other actions instead, whatever they may be.
yes, this is why it was created, it's why it exists!
I have absolutely no problem with the US deciding to re-balance its economy using tariffs, that is its sovereign right
but I have a problem with it using them as a tool of coercion against its "allies" to achieve foreign policy objectives
and not to mention the direct threats of annexation
> But if the EU "decouples" from the US, there's no incentive for the US to not, for example, take over Greenland.
if you assume the decoupling has completed, then the rest of the west would by definition be capable of defending itself without being subject to coercion/blackmail
(there's also the the two nuclear powers treaty bound to defend it)
Many top economies have trade deficits. China is a unique example that goes against that, although I believe China is trying to have their population spend more rather than save.
This claim seems like it warrants at least some qualifying statements. Certainly you'd acknowledge where there are situations in which a trade imbalance is a net negative?
> I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that underlying conditions, including a lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships, disparate tariff rates and non-tariff barriers, and U.S. trading partners’ economic policies that suppress domestic wages and consumption, as indicated by large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States. That threat has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States in the domestic economic policies of key trading partners and structural imbalances in the global trading system. I hereby declare a national emergency with respect to this threat.
Does not seem they've addressed their self-imposed "national emergency".
¹ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/regu...
(Markets are not happy right now either, but that's likely for some other reason, and will no doubt rebound suddenly because alwaysgoesup.)
actionfromafar•2h ago
The only solution is to swap out leadership of Atlanta FED. That way, we can have more positive reports.
delaminator•2h ago
Jan - October Trade Deficit Declines on Higher Exports, Lower Imports
Nov - US trade deficit widens by the most in nearly 34 years in November
daxfohl•1h ago