Benchmark
Trump Trade Friction Overlooks America's Huge Surplus in Services
Intellectual property is a big export earner for the U.S.
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One thing that’s often missed in President Donald Trump’s complaints about the U.S. trade deficit is America’s $248 billion surplus in exports of services like education, banking and software.
Microsoft Corp., Goldman Sachs Group and FedEx Corp. are all exporters when they do business overseas. The money that more than 70 million foreign visitors spend in the U.S. each year also counts toward services exports. So do the tuition fees of over 1 million foreign students at U.S. colleges and schools, and the box-office returns for Hollywood blockbusters, when they’re screened abroad in India, China and elsewhere.