Trade Deficits Come Due Someday
Germany will want something in return.
Photographer: Guenter Schiffmann/BloombergIn a recent interview on the EconTalk podcast, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor said that a trade deficit represents a loan that has to be paid back. This is an important issue, since the U.S. has run a large trade deficit for several decades now:
I was happy to hear someone talk about this fact, which is rarely acknowledged. But not everyone was pleased. When I repeated Autor’s statement, Dan Ikenson, director of the Herbert A. Steifel Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, said that I don’t understand how trade works, and that a trade deficit isn't a loan. Ikenson is wrong, and this provides an important opportunity to explain how trade deficits work.
Free Trade Feud