A Record Trade Deficit How Can The Us Government Prevent A Looming Trade Crisis

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Download or read book The U.S. Trade Deficit written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. trade deficit has risen more or less steadily since 1992. This imbalance reached $665.5 billion in 2004, an increase of nearly $135 billion over the 2003 deficit, and a rise of about $630 billion since 1992. The deficit's growth in 2004 was for the most part the consequence of a sharp acceleration of import purchases, up nearly $240 billion, in a fast growing economy. Exports had been falling since 2000, but in response to a cheaper dollar and faster growth abroad, increased about $40 billion in 2003 and about $120 billion in 2004. Together this has resulted in the trade deficit reaching another record size in 2004. The $3.9 billion deficit in the investment income component in 2002 was followed by a $33.3 billion surplus in 2003 and a $24.1 billion surplus in 2004. Surpluses in investment income are good news, but the large and growing size of U.S. foreign indebtedness suggests the longer term trend will be toward larger investment income deficits. The size of the U.S. trade deficit is ultimately rooted in macroeconomic conditions at home and abroad. U.S. saving falls short of what is sought to finance U.S. investment. Many foreign economies are in the opposite circumstances, with domestic saving exceeding domestic opportunities for investment. This difference of wants will tend to be reconciled by international capital flows. The shortfall in domestic saving relative to investment tends to draw an inflow of relatively abundant foreign savings seeking to maximize returns and, in turn, the saving inflow makes a higher level of investment possible. For the United States, a net financial inflow also leads to a like-sized net inflow of foreign goods -- a trade deficit. Absent the prospect of any major change in the underlying domestic and foreign macroeconomic determinants, most forecasts predict the continued widening of the U.S. trade deficit in 2004. But the rate of increase of the deficit is expected to slow as foreign investors slow the growth of their dollar asset holdings. The benefit of the trade deficit is that it allows the United States to spend now beyond current income. In recent years that spending has largely been for investment in productive capital. The cost of the trade deficit is a deterioration of the U.S. investment-income balance, as the payment on what we have borrowed from foreigners grows with our rising indebtedness. Borrowing from abroad allows the United States to live better today, but the payback must mean some decrement to the rate of advance of U.S. living standards in the future. U.S. trade deficits do not now substantially raise the risk of economic instability, but they do impose burdens on trade sensitive sectors of the economy. Policy action to reduce the overall trade deficit is problematic. Standard trade policy tools (e.g., tariffs, quotas, and subsidies) do not work. Macroeconomic policy tools can work, but recent and prospective government budget deficits will reduce domestic saving and most likely tend to increase the trade deficit. Most economists believe that, in time, the trade deficit will most likely correct itself, without crisis, under the pressures of normal market forces. But the risk of a more calamitous outcome can not be completely discounted. This report will be updated annually.