The New York Times has a piece fact-checking some of Donald Trump's many, many claims about trade deficits, and once again a pattern emerges. The man gets told something by somebody, somewhere—probably during Fox & Friends—and he's off: misquoting, misinterpreting, and embellishing the one or two things he took away from the conversation until it bears only passing relation to the facts.
As might be predicted when Donald starts throwing numbers around, the Times notes that not all those jobs were lost to trade—automation has also been a manufacturing job killer—and that even the White House admits $800 billion isn't the number he thinks it is. But good luck getting Donald to understand, you know, money stuff.
A White House spokesman said the $800 billion deficit figure that Mr. Trump has cited refers to the trade balance in goods. The Department of Commerce reported a $810 billion deficit in goods in 2017, but a total trade deficit of $566 billion that includes a trade surplus in services.
You’re asking him to remember two numbers? At once? Has he ever managed such a thing?
And on it goes.
He also has inflated the trade deficit with China, flat-out lied about having a trade deficit with Canada, flat-out lied about the United States "losing many billions" on trade with "virtually every country,” and is evidently deeply confused even about the numbers involved in his own announced tariffs. Which, honestly, is to be expected at this point. He is so transparently incapable of grasping economic facts and figures that being able to recite the true numbers, as every non-idiot president before him was expected to do, is at this point simply acknowledged to be outside his abilities.
For what it's worth, despite his incessant bleating Donald Trump has not "fixed" the trade deficit or even made a plausible stab at it; in January it rose to its highest monthly level in a decade. This is widely considered to be due to the strengthening economy here at home, and is not something that a single presidential administration has consistent influence in, barring a new trade war or five. The departure of White House economic guru Gary Cohn, who self-ejected after Trump's announcement of new steel and aluminum tariffs, suggests that at least Cohn does not believe Trump's latest actions will be moving the nation in a wise direction.
At this point, not even Trump's circle of advisers seems to have much faith that Donald can be taught even the most rote basics of economy or trade. The plan at this point seems to be to have him build and destroy whichever policy sandcastles he wants, under the premise that after he's through the next team will have the much harder task of piecing it all back together again into something recognizable and cogent.