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Trade Balance

13 posts

The IMF vs. Greer on Budget Deficits and Trade Deficits

In a recent piece published on the IMF website, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer argues that "[t]rade theory must catch up with tariffs, industrial policy, and the costs of globalization." There's a lot to discuss in there, but I'm going to focus

Assigning Blame for Trade Imbalances

Finance professor Michael Pettis writes often about trade imbalances, and as I've followed what he has to say on this subject over the years, I've tried to figure out where exactly he and I disagree.

Guest Post: Are President Trump’s New Section 122 Tariffs Legal?

This is a guest post from Bryan Riley and Joe Bishop-Henchman. Bryan is Director of the Free Trade Initiative at the National Taxpayers Union; Joe is Executive Vice President at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation President Trump has issued new 10% tariffs, shortly after raised to 15%, based on

Section 122 as a (Partial) Replacement for the IEEPA Tariffs

Apparently, this is the era of dusting off old international economic policy statutes and figuring out what they mean and how they work. After the Supreme Court's ruling today in Learning Resources, holding that "IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs," we are now

Trade Deficits, Savings/Consumption, Currencies and the Causes of U.S. Budget Deficits

I've seen a number of recent statements by people suggesting that U.S. fiscal deficits are being driven by (1) the dollar as the reserve currency and (2) relatively low foreign consumption/high foreign savings. These factors, it is suggested, lead to lower interest rates for borrowing in

Collective Economic Security

Collective Economic Security By Mona Paulsen (LSE Law) and Dan Ciuriak (C.D. Howe (Senior Fellow)) With a flurry of pomp and circumstance, the second Trump administration has reset United States trade with its trading partners. Based on U.S. laws that afford wide Executive discretion towards trade actions owing

Lighthizer's Proposal for the Trading System

Former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had a recent NY Times op-ed in which he argues for some big changes to the trading system. He starts off by complaining about other governments' industrial policies: What brought down the postwar trading order was the rise in many countries

Chrystia Freeland on Global Imbalances and Fiscal Deficits

In a recent interview, Chrystia Freeland -- former Canadian trade minister and finance minister, and currently a candidate for leader of the Liberal Party -- made the following argument involving a connection between global macro imbalances and the U.S. fiscal deficit (starts at around 11:20 of the video): Scott Bessent

Foreign Savings and U.S. Budget Deficits

In the context of expressing concern with trade imbalances, a recent piece by Michael Pettis and Erica Hogan argues that high foreign savings in some countries (e.g. China and Germany) is linked to the growing U.S. fiscal deficit (among other things): The global trade system is broken. Current

Trade Balances and Trade Interventions and Trade Protectionism

Last week, finance professor Michael Pettis spoke at an event about a new paper he co-authored. From what I can tell, Pettis has had some influence recently on the U.S. trade policy debate, but I have found his views hard to decipher. He and I have interacted a