The trade-offs of the trade deficit

Make Me Smart

Today we’re talking about the trade deficit at the request of some of our curious listeners. Since the mid-’70s, the U.S. has persistently been importing more goods than it exports. Is that such a bad thing? We’ll hear from Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about why the U.S. has a trade deficit, whether it’s a good or bad thing, and why a country’s overall trade deficit matters more than deficits with specific countries.

Then, we’ll get into how online political donations are fueling election campaigns this year. Plus, the malleable idea of “old age” and the wonders of happy sheep in a solar field.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• • “Trade deficits aren’t good or bad, just weird” from Marketplace

• • “The U.S. Trade Deficit: How Much Does It Matter?” from the Council on Foreign Relations

• • Historical U.S. Trade Deficits from the St. Louis Fed

• • “Chinese Exports Are Threatening Biden’s Industrial Agenda” from The New York Times

• • “Trump promised to rebalance trade in North America. The US trade deficit keeps climbing.” from Politico

• • “How online donations are fueling the election” from Politico

• • Polling in 2024 from Reuters

• • Opinion | “What Departing Lawmakers Think About Congress” from The New York Times

• • “Young US adults reach key milestones later in life than in the past like marriage, full-time job, financial independence” from Pew Research Center

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