Here’s another note to a regular correspondent who, in his words, knows “for sure President Donald Trump is right about trade.”
Mr. McKinney:
Thanks for passing along U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s recent Congressional testimony – testimony from which, you claim, I “may finally learn the truth how President Trump is rescuing the US from foreigners taking advantage of us for decades.”
Sigh.
I could go through Greer’s piece and identify each of its many errors, not the least of these being his main point that U.S. trade deficits are a problem that must be solved. In reality, these “deficits” reflect net capital inflows into the U.S. – capital inflows drawn overwhelmingly by the U.S. economy’s strength. These deficits are not, contrary to what Greer and Trump repeatedly insist, caused by foreigners having “rigged the global economy” to abuse Americans. According to UNCTAD’s hot-off-the-press “World Investment Report 2026,” the U.S. continues to lead the world as a recipient of inbound foreign direct investment, receiving in 2025 83 percent more such investment than was received by second-place Singapore (and 164 percent more than fourth-place China).
Also contributing to U.S. trade deficits is the dollar’s continued role as the global reserve currency. This role is one that Trump – inconsistently with his obsession with eliminating U.S. trade deficits – wants the dollar to continue to play.
I could, as I say, pick apart Greer’s testimony flaw by flaw, misunderstanding by misunderstanding, half-truth by half-truth. But instead, I’ll share with you this new music video by Jason Stills showing World Cup visitors to America being gobsmacked by the prosperity enjoyed by ordinary Americans.
If Trump, Greer, and the MAGA choir were correct that we Americans have been abused for decades by trade with foreigners, these visitors to America would have found us to be a relatively poor people – a people worthy more of pity rather than of our visitors’ astonishment at the wealth that for us is mundane yet for our visitors is jaw-droppingly enormous.
Sincerely,
Don
