china trade Kevin Frayer/Stringer

Does Addressing Bilateral Trade Imbalances Work?

Even if China opened its markets fully to US goods and services, the total US trade deficit would not change. But focusing on imbalances with individual countries can nonetheless lead to desirable policy changes, as the Trump administration's approach to China has shown.

CAMBRIDGE – Politicians and economists view trade imbalances very differently. Consider the United States’ trade deficit. Economists emphasize that the total US trade deficit with the rest of the world is the result of policies and actions at home. Simply put, if the US invests more than the country as a whole saves, it must import the difference from the rest of the world, creating the existing trade deficit.

But politicians (and the general public) tend to focus on bilateral trade deficits with individual countries, like the $300 billion imbalance between the US and China. They blame the bilateral deficit on Chinese policies that block imports of US products and subsidize Chinese exports to the US.

Economists explain that those policies affect the composition of the US trade imbalance, but not its size. If China changed its trade policies in ways that reduced the bilateral deficit, the US trade deficit with some other country would increase, or its surplus with some other country would shrink. The overall US trade deficit with the world, however, would not change.

https://prosyn.org/zV7LfgN