U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, December 2018

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by dairyair, Mar 9, 2019.

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  1. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    THE U.S. TRADE DEFICIT ballooned almost 19 percent in December, widening to the largest monthly gap in a decade and propelling the annual trade gap to the U.S's biggest ever.

    The annual trade gap in goods hit $891.3 billion in 2018, and the trade deficit between the U.S. and China rose to a record $419 billion, according to numbers released by the Commerce Department Wednesday.


    What happened?
    Aren't we in a trade war with much of the world to decrease the trade gap?
    Why isn't this working?
     
  2. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Are trade deficits not a concern?
    Are we waging trade wars for nothing?
     
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  3. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    Our conservative friends are definitely very silent about this. Can you imagine the 100s of "thank you President Trump" posts if the trade deficit had gone down y the same amount?
     
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  4. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Not a single attempt at defending the lose/lose policy.
    Even though they were cheering loudly when implemented.
    And it's hurting the economy as well. Farmers are hurting.
     
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  5. AKS

    AKS Banned

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    No, they aren't.
     
  6. AKS

    AKS Banned

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    Agree about the lose/lose policies. The bottom line is that if the deficit increased on tariffed goods then American consumers effectively payed higher taxes - and this obviously hurt the poor the most. Is that what the trumpers want, higher taxes?
    We can't get the orange idiot out of a decision making role fast enough.
     
  7. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Smart people know they are not a real concern, but the trade war went into effect any ways.
    The silence of the tRUMP crowd is roaring. Knowing how another losing policy from his Admin if hurting real American farmers and consumers.

    And for absolutely no reason. As the trade deficit widens because of the policy.
    We've tried trade wars before. There is history of how well they work, which is, they never have.
    So, we put in another failed policy because of why? Faux crowd thought it would be different this time.
     
  8. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    China weakened its currency again against an already strong dollar. Europe is not doing anywhere near as good as the US economically.
     
  9. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    The world economy is slowing. Trade wars hurting the world's economy?
    As the price of many things are artificially inflated.

    Are the trade wars working as you thought they would?
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
  10. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    China has cut it's growth projections as has the EU.

    Yes countries are negotiating new deals which more level the playing field but we still have a ways to go. Do you support those negotiations?
     
  11. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Sure, I support the negotiations.
    But that hasn't helped the trade deficit.
    Likely is a reason the world economy is slowing as prices are artificially raised.
     
  12. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    I think the $5B soybean deal with China did. We signed the North American deal that will help level the playing field. And we are working the Europe to get to 0 tariffs. How does having high tariffs on our products going overseas and no tariffs on products coming here help our trade deficit?
     
  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not exactly a big job maker though.

    Agricultural commodities are one of the few things American exports, and yeah, that creates profits for the big Agro corporations that own the land, but what type of jobs are those creating? They way I see it, anything that's not mechanized is pretty much done by undocumented workers from other countries.

    You want to see what type of jobs Globalization creates for America?
    Look here:
    Living Conditions of Migrant Farm workers
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2019
  14. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    How has it hurt? Our trade deficit has widened. We haven't reduced it. It's made worse with our tariffs.
     
  15. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    You got me. :(
    I'll confess it was my wife buying presents for the grandkids. I was amazed. Most of the stuff was clothes and it looked pretty well made.
     
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  16. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    Actually it was the dollar getting stronger. The yuan is stable against other currencies.
     
  17. ronv

    ronv Well-Known Member

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    For the full year, imports from the U.S. were at 16.6 million tons, about half of 2017’s 32.9 million tons.

    By contrast, China brought in 4.39 million tons of soybeans from Brazil in December, up 126 percent from 1.94 million tons a year ago, according to the data from the General Administration of Customs.

    When is Congress going to take up NAFTA 2.0 anyway?

    What is the tariff spread between the EU and the US?
     
  18. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    Give that pathetic organization(Congress) time. Between Omar's stupidity, the stupidity of the House overall and Senators laughably trying to run for President when more than half of them have failed as senators, we might get something in the summer of 2019 but don't hold your breath.
     
  19. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Does NAFTA 2 benefit the congress?
    If not, don't expect them to bring it up, another failure.
     
  20. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    To top off how great these trade wars are the annual growth rate for the 1st quarter is coming in at a whopping 0.5% according to

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. economy is growing at a 0.5 percent annualized rate in the first quarter, based on the latest monthly data on domestic payrolls and housing starts, the Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow forecast model showed on Friday.

    This matched the pace for the first-quarter gross domestic product that the Atlanta Fed's GDP program calculated on Wednesday.
    https://www.investing.com/news/econ...quarter-gdp-growth-view-at-05-percent-1802287

    Winning. Not sure who is winning.

    The world's economies are slowing.
    Recession right around the corner?
     
  21. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    And we just signed one of the largest trade deals with China for soybeans, maybe if the Dems stopped wasting their time on trying to impeach we can get the NA deal signed, and if you want to know the current spread with Europe go look it up and in the meantime negotiations are in process. What did the last administration do to make trade more fair and what are the current Dem candidates saying they will do about it.
     
  22. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    You mean will the Democrats in the House bring it up and give Trump a win, no they are too busy qih their impeachment nonsense.
     
  23. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    And they are all compared to the dollar. They have been letting it drift down in anticipation of tariffs but may have hit their bottom now.
     
  24. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    You have a bad memory. NAFTA was done by tRUMP last year. R's had control last year, did nothing with it.
    And yes, if NAFTA 2 is good for our economy, they will bring it up. The Senate is strong R, have they moved on it? Of course not, but hey, it's the D's fault, who've been in control of the house for 2 months. LOL.

    At any rate, the trade wars are making things worse.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2019
  25. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Starting at the farm and of course all the companies that supply farmers with their supplies and equipment. Then the local storage facility and all the people who work there who then load them on to trucks and all the people involved in running the trucks then at the ports and all they people who store and then load the ships and work on the ships while they are in port and on and on not even mentioning all the finance and insurance and brokerage people involved.
     

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