It's actually not clear that trade deficits between nations are meaningful. Suppose country A sells 100 seashells worth of foo to country B and B sells 100 seas

It's actually not clear that trade deficits between nations are meaningful. Suppose country A sells 100 seashells worth of foo to country B and B sells 100 seashells worth of bar to C and C sells 100 seashells worth of baz to A. None of the countries have a trade deficit on the whole, but A has a 100 seashell trade deficit to C. So yes, the trade deficit exists in this example but that doesn't imply directly that A needs to take action to fix it. I think most outside observers of this three way arrangement would think it sounds fine, where the issues creep up is when foo production requires little labor and baz production is very labor intensive.