Kyla Scanlon on her weirdly named newsletter, Kyla’s Newsletter:

Trade deficits: These don’t automatically mean a country is “cheating.” A trade deficit means we import more from a country than we export to it. This can happen for benign reasons like strong consumer spending, the US dollar’s global strength, or the fact we don’t grow certain crops here. If we reduce imports from China via high tariffs, we might just buy from Vietnam or another country (likely Latin America based on the tariff rates). The overall deficit just shifts around because we simply cannot produce things like bananas or coffee here. Also, these are countries that send things to us, like Cambodia, so we have a giant trade deficit – but it isn’t because they are taking advantage of us, it’s because they simply can’t afford to buy our things. There is no way to ‘even out’ that deficit, and it really shouldn’t be a goal.

Just an overall great piece on this whole tariff bullshit.

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