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  • US trade delegate Jamieson Greer has called on American companies to report unfair trade practices by partner countries, according Budliger Artieda. This applies in particular to G20 countries and states with a strongly positive trade balance with the US.

    You would not expect an efficient world market to have a zero bilateral trade balance between each pair of countries in it.

    Say we have a world with three countries.

    Country A is good at producing apples and consumes a lot of beans.

    Country B is good at producing beans and consumes a lot of cherries.

    Country C is good at producing cherries and consumes a lot of apples.

    No country on there should have a zero bilateral trade balance with any other country. Country A should run a deficit with B and surplus with C. B should run a deficit with C and surplus with A. C should run a deficit with A and surplus with B.

    You could, with sufficient regulation, prevent that from happening, but you'd be giving up the gains you get from comparative advantage.

  • trump has a trade deficit with mcdonalds too. Time to annex them or something.

22 comments