Talking trade, I find people I speak to like that I'm willing to call out the Trump administration as idiotic for trying to bring every bilateral trade relationship into balance. But, sotto voce, my interlocutors often don't quite get how I can strongly favor a norm of balanced trade while mocking attempts to balance individual trade relationships. Isn't any country's overall trade deficit or surplus the sum of its "bilateral" balances with individual trade partners? Yes it is! So if we want ...
