No ... they do not make the US poorer. Trade deficits make every other country poorer, but not in the case of the US. That's the "deal" that Nixon forced at Bre

No ... they do not make the US poorer. Trade deficits make every other country poorer, but not in the case of the US. That's the "deal" that Nixon forced at Bretton Woods. Why the difference? Because they're measured in USD: if a trade deficit makes the US poorer, the US can simply print dollars until they've recovered whatever they've lost, or more. Another huge problem in the article linked: "a trade deficit is like buying stuff with a credit card". True, but I would emphasize VERY strongly that it's a credit card with a MINUS 4% interest rate. The US gets to print money that is accepted worldwide (and countries accept that their central bank holdings, minimum X, get devalued at on average 4% per year), but the US side of the deal is that the US provides a market for worldwide goods and hoovers up excess production capacity of essentially the entire world. (there's more to it, like the world bank, but ...) The deal is that this massively raises world economic output, as long as the US has massive, perhaps not unlimited, but massive trade deficits. TLDR: for the US, the deal is, free money but you don't get to do protectionism. For the rest of the world, the opposite. Every dollar is accounted for BUT they can be as protectionist as they like (and they are). Oh and only the US gets to make huge loans to the rest of the world. An issue with this is: all the free money in the US is disbursed through US banks and, essentially, put in the stock market (with a -small- percentage going to the US government). It took the banks 50 years, but they figured out how to keep it enough for themselves to make the system sputter. Of course, the issue the banks have is: the system has been sputtering since, oh, 2019 or so. If it breaks down, the stock market will not drop 10%, but 95% at least. THAT's the risk Trump is messing with. But Trump is also right that it is Europe and China that broke the deal, not the US. China is trying to create a parallel reserve currency that they can print, the "digital Yen" (+ the belt and road initiative). Europe has created the Euro while remaining protectionist. Both are existential threats to the US' reserve status, but frankly, they're not really making a dent. Now Trump wants to countries to work harder on their side of the deal WHILE reneging on the US part of it.