President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Saving reduces trade deficits. Americans have a very low saving rate. Americans want to take the dollars they earn (and some that they don't earn, because we have a lot of debt) and trade them in for big screen TVs and cell phones and SUVs. They want those big screen TVs and cell phones and SUVs that they really can't afford at cheap prices, obviously. The U.S. can not, and does not, produce those things cheaply -- for a host of reasons. But because the United States has been granted reserve currency status by the world (again, a whole other conversation), others are willing to accept U.S. dollars for their reserves in return for big screen TVs and cell phones and SUVs that they've produced cheaply.

That has been the U.S. in a nutshell for several decades -- as we do our own version of the decline of the Roman Empire / British Empire.

If your goal is to reduce America's trade deficits. ... You need to convince Americans to start saving (and stop consuming). It's that simple. You also have to give up your reserve currency status. It's not a matter of a tariff or some bully tactic where you browbeat businesses with silly rhetoric.

Even if you can accomplish what I said -- increase savings, give up reserve currency status -- you have to first ask yourself WHY you want to run a trade surplus, and at what price? A trade surplus in and of itself is not a key to economic success the way the kindergarten rhetoric has convinced the masses. Ask Japan.