Just a few points, if I may, on our “Trade Deficit” with Canada

Over three-quarters of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States is represented by the service sector and not tangible products.  The current list of Fortune 500 companies contains more service companies and fewer manufacturers than in previous decades.  The assumption that bilateral trade deficits are inherently bad is overwhelmingly rejected by economists and trade experts.

•  If you consider both goods and services, the US has a slight surplus in our trade with Canada.
• Canada has a substantial net deficit on dairy trade and imposes tariffs on milk.  This however represents only two-tenths of one percent of our trade with Canada.
• We have an overall agricultural surplus with Canada and export 5X more dairy products than we import.
• We run a trade deficit (goods only-not services) with the top 15 of our trading partners.

Percentage Point Trade Gap
Red=deficit     Green=surplus
Click on map image to enlarge

For a better explanation of America’s Misunderstood Trade Deficit, see this 1998 article by Daniel Griswold.  An excerpt from this article is below:

Savings - Investment = Exports – Imports

Thus, a nation that saves more than it invests, such as Japan, will export its excess savings in the form of net foreign investment. In other words, it must run a capital account deficit. The money sent abroad as investment will return to the country as payments for its exports, which will be in excess of what the country imports, creating a corresponding trade surplus. A nation that invests more than it saves - the United States, for example - must import capital from abroad. In other words, it must run a capital account surplus. The imported capital allows the nation’s citizens to consume more goods and services than they produce, importing the difference through a trade deficit.

Our ballooning national debt, exacerbated by a “spend it now and we’ll figure out how to pay for it later” philosophy of our current and previous administrations, has done far more to increase our “trade deficit” than any cheese exports to Canada ever will.

Imports=Red  Exports=Black
Canada shows but a 2% disparity

Renegotiating NAFTA, even with a $1 trillion deficit with Mexico and Canada, won't get us any closer to global trade parity.  The bulk of any current trade problem is with China, not our north-south neighbors or allies in Europe.

President Trump will never read about this (he admittedly doesn't read), and won't hear about it unless we can get Sean Hannity to read it to him aloud on Fox News.