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Suspect Motives Behind Opposition to China Trade Deal

President Trump’s trade negotiations with China have revealed a great deal about American politics and the current psyche of far too many.

From a purely logical perspective, the move to rein in China’s rapacious practices of intellectual property theft, espionage, product dumping, forced technology transfer, industrial subsidies, and various barriers against American goods should be an across-the-board, nonpartisan, widely-supported move.

But clearly, that has not been the case. Personal gain through contacts with China (some legitimate, some corrupt) by elected officials,  a warped understanding of the concept of free trade (how can trade be free if one side plays by the rules but the other does not?), a belief that some consumer  pain may result from a clamp down on Beijing’s practices, a concern that China will cease to fund Washington’s out of control deficit spending, and, quite bluntly, a belief by some, exclusively on the Left, that somehow America has a moral obligation to disperse its prosperity throughout the world at the expense of the American worker, have all come together to limit enthusiasm for Trump’s initiative.

China’s contributions to the Democratic Party, particularly Bill Clinton’s presidential re-election campaign, (Clinton allowed the sale to Beijing the supercomputer that gave that nation’s military the chance to catch up to the U.S.; he also signed legislation allowed China open and continuous access to the U.S.) and suspected financial ties to the Clinton Foundation are only part of the story. 

Peter Schweitzer, writing in the New York Post notes that Democratic primary contender and former Vice President Joe Biden’s bizarre denial of China’s danger to the U.S. is the result of his family’s business contacts. “In 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden flew aboard Air Force Two to China. Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden’s firm inked a $1 billion private equity deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China. The deal was later expanded to $1.5 billion. In short, the Chinese government funded a business that it co-owned along with the son of a sitting vice president. If it sounds shocking that a vice president would shape US-China policy as his son — who has scant experience in private equity — clinched a coveted billion-dollar deal with an arm of the Chinese government, that’s because it is.”

But Clinton and Biden aren’t alone.  In an exclusive interview on the Vernuccio-Novak radio program, former top Clinton advisor and current There are other natural remedies that could reduce and even eliminate the irritable bowel syndrome Rheumatoid Arthritis Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism Fibromyalgia Acute Coronary Syndrome Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is yet unknown. Source cialis 40 mg Erectile Dysfunction does not have to be order cialis online http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/bunnies/ a part of being a healthy human. You cialis online http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/corgi/page/2/ should be careful about making too many presumptions until the big picture is a lot more clear. We still never pass each other in the cheap viagra house and the Senate are tenuous. Republican-oriented commentator Dick Morris stated his belief that a number of key leaders in both parties have ties to private interests that profit from dealings with China, making them reluctant to support necessary corrections.

Placing personal financial gain over the good of the nation is corruption on a grand scale. Since Clinton signed the pro-China legislation in 2000, five million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost.

There are factors other than the corruption of Clinton, Biden, and politicians of all stripes who seek to continue to borrow funds from China to prop up their vast spending programs aimed more at buying votes than solving problems.

Those opposing finally confronting China point to the fact that prices in stores such as Walmart may increase.  That issue, however, will be short-lived. Numerous other nations with more balanced and fair trade practices are willing and eager to produce consumer goods at competitive prices, and those countries will not be using the profits to build a military aimed squarely at America.

Timidity is not appropriate, for China has far more to lose in a trade fight.  While the U.S. may face a temporary and relatively small increase in the cost of consumer goods, and while politicians may have to find other means to finance their extreme deficit spending (or, as a novel thought, actually rein in unnecessary spending) Beijing faces far more serious consequences. China’s economy is heavily dependent on exports, and cannot withstand a serious decrease.

Equally as significant to the nation’s government is the mass dissent that may arise from a significant setback to their economy.  The unspoken pact between the authoritarian leadership of the Communist Party and its subjects is that the people accept a lack of voice in their government in return for economic gains. Those gains would be lost in a trade fight, a clear threat to the continued totalitarian rulership.   

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Media Ignores Good News on Economy

Conspicuously missing from the headlines throughout most of the media is the growing strength of the American economy, due to the change in the White House following the 2016 elections.  That reality simply fails to meet the dire, and totally incorrect, predictions of a biased media that the return to traditional American economics following the failed, leftward path of the Obama Administration would produce salutary effects.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 304,000 jobs in January, far surpassing market expectations (165,000) January 2019 marked 16th consecutive month of employment growth of at least 100,000 new jobs. Numerous sectors experienced job growth in January, including mining and logging (7,000), transportation and warehousing (27,000), construction (52,000), education and health services (55,000), and leisure and hospitality (74,000). The economy has added 4.9 million jobs since January 2017 and 5.3 million jobs since President Trump was elected.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “U.S. stocks post their best January in 30 Years…Gains by banks and small caps helped lift the Dow and S&P 500 to their best starts since the 1980s….”

The 163,229,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 63.2 percent of the 258,239,000 civilian noninstitutionalized population, an increase from the 62.9% when the Obama Administration left office.

Market Watch reports that Manufacturing jobs have grown at fastest rate in 23 years.

This is a vital statistic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, President Obama’s tenure in office presided over the loss of over 300,000 manufacturing jobs. The former president was rather nonchalant about that reality, stating, as his administration was winding down to its final months, that “some manufacturing jobs ‘are just not going to come back.’”

Obama’s legion of admirers in the media wholeheartedly agreed with the former president’s gloomy and incorrect analysis.

 Forbes noted that “…as the shock of a President-elect Donald Trump was still being absorbed, New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman tweeted on November 25, 2016, ‘Nothing policy can do will bring back those lost jobs. The service sector is the future of work; but nobody wants to hear it.”

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Well, a funny thing happened—Trump’s policies, and just as importantly, the expectation of Trump’s policies, ignited a manufacturing resurgence…In the first 21 months of the Trump presidency… manufacturing employment grew by 3.1%, reversing the trend under Obama … Comparing the last 21 months of the Obama administration with the first 21 months of Trump’s, shows that under Trump’s watch, more than 10 times the number of manufacturing jobs were added.”

The Obama Administration, with its extreme regulatory policies and leftist economics, hindered manufacturing growth. An analysis by Bloomberg outlines the dilemma: the minimal amount of jobs that are were created were in traditionally lower-paying fields, furthering a transfer of employment from middle income to lower income. Payrolls at middle-class paying factories fell, while jobs in low-paying fields such as retail, leisure, and hospitality fields rose.

In addition to the Trump Administration’s push to lower taxes and ease the regulatory burden, its tough stance on China’s unfair trade policies have had an impact. China has not abided by reasonable trade practices following normalization of commercial relations.  Its resulting domination of several industries resulted in decimating American industrial production and the loss of vast numbers of manufacturing jobs. U.S. News reports that within the first 13 years since normalization, 3.2 million American factory jobs were lost.

A specific example of how President Trump’s tough stance on China has produced results can be seen in a study of the U.S. aluminum manufacturing sector. The Economic Policy Institute found in December that “One and a half years ago, the U.S. primary aluminum industry was hanging on by a thread. Between 2010 and 2017, 18 of 23 domestic aluminum smelters shut down, eliminating roughly 13,000 good domestic jobs. In 2016, there were three alumina refineries supplying U.S. smelters; by 2017, only one remained in operation… after the Section 232 tariffs were imposed on aluminum (and steel) on March 8, 2018, the domestic producers of both primary aluminum and downstream aluminum products have made commitments to create thousands of jobs, invest billions of dollars in aluminum production, and substantially increase domestic production.”

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U.S. Responds to Unfair Trade, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of unfair trade practices confronting the United States.

Beijing’s offenses range beyond mere trade barriers. China is the world’s principal sponsor of intellectual property theft, which costs the U.S. economy as much as $600 billion annually.

As noted in a GOP analysis, among China’s more egregious misuses and theft of U.S. intellectual property:

  • Chinese actors associated with the military are alleged to have broken into the computer systems of U.S. companies and stolen proprietary information for commercial gain.
  • S. companies across various sectors have suffered from Chinese applicants illegally registering their trademarks in bad faith to profit off of U.S. companies’ global reputation.
  • China has blocked U.S. telecommunications, credit card, and film companies from operating in the country.
  • China has sponsored the subsidization and dumping of cheap steel and aluminum which have weakened internal U.S. producers and impaired U.S. national security.
  • China has used faulty science and other bad faith tactics to block the importation of U.S. beef products, poultry, and corn despite China’s World Trade Organization market access obligations.

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According to The Commission On The Theft Of American Intellectual Property,   “China Is The World’s Principal IP Infringer, And Is ‘Deeply Committed’ To Industrial Policies, Such As The ‘Acquisition Of Foreign Technology And Information’ That Contribute To ‘Greater IP Theft.’ ‘China, whose industrial output now exceeds that of the United States, remains the world’s principal IP infringer. China is deeply committed to industrial policies that include maximizing the acquisition of foreign technology and information, policies that have contributed to greater IP theft.’”

On May 29, the White House  provided specific objections to China’s trade practices, and the responses the Trump Administration will engage in to address the problem:

YEARS OF UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES: China has consistently taken advantage of the American economy with practices that undermine fair and reciprocal trade.

  • For many years, China has pursued industrial policies and unfair trade practices—including dumping, discriminatory non-tariff barriers, forced technology transfer, over capacity, and industrial subsidies—that champion Chinese firms and make it impossible for many United States firms to compete on a level playing field.
  • China’s industrial policies, such as its “Made in China 2025” plan, harm companies in the United States and around the world.
  • China imposes much higher tariffs on United States exports than the United States imposes on China.
    • China’s average tariff rate is nearly three times higher than the average United States rate.
    • Certain products are even more imbalanced, for instance the United States charges a 2.5 percent tariff on Chinese cars, while China currently maintains a 25 percent tariff on cars from the United States.
  • China has banned imports of United States agricultural products such as poultry, cutting off America’s ranchers and farmers from a major market for their goods.
  • China has dumped and unfairly subsidized a range of goods for the United States market, undermining America’s domestic industry.
    • In 2018 alone, the Trump Administration has found dumping or unfair subsidies on 13 different products, including steel wheels, cold-drawn mechanical tubing, tool chests and cabinets, forged steel fittings, aluminum foil, rubber bands, cast iron soil pipe and fittings, and large diameter welded pipe.
  • In January 2018, the Trump Administration found that China’s overproduction of steel and aluminum, and the resulting impact on global markets, is a circumstance that threatens to impair America’s national security.
  • The United States has run a trade in goods deficit with China for years, including a $375 billion deficit in 2017 alone.

UNDERMINING AMERICAN INNOVATION AND JOBS: China has aggressively sought to obtain technology from American companies and undermine American innovation and creativity.

  • The cost of China’s intellectual property theft costs United States innovators billions of dollars a year, and China accounts for 87 percent of counterfeit goods seized coming into the United States.
  • United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) Section 301 investigation identified four of China’s aggressive technology policies that put 44 million American technology jobs at risk:
    • Forced technology transfer;
    • Requiring licensing at less than economic value;
    • Chinese state-directed acquisition of sensitive United States technology for strategic purposes; and
    • Outright cyber theft.
  • China uses foreign ownership restrictions, administrative review, and licensing processes to force or pressure technology transfers from American companies.
    • China requires foreign companies that access their New Energy Vehicles market to transfer core technologies and disclose development and manufacturing technology.
    • China imposes contractual restrictions on the licensing of intellectual property and technology by foreign firms into China, but does not put the same restrictions on contracts between two Chinese enterprises.
  • China directs and facilitates investments in and acquisitions of United States companies to generate large-scale technology transfer.
  • China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into United States computer networks to gain access to valuable business information so Chinese companies can copy products.

STANDING UP TO CHINA’S UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES: President Trump has taken long overdue action to finally address the source of the problem, China’s unfair trade practices that hurt America’s workers and our innovative industries.

  • In January 2018, the President announced his decision to provide safeguard relief to United States manufacturers injured by surging imports of washing machines and solar products.
    • This was the first use of Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose tariffs in 16 years.
    • These actions responded to injurious trade practices by China and other countries, including attempts to avoid legally imposed antidumping and countervailing duties.
    • Following the decision, Whirlpool announced 200 new jobs in Ohio.
  • USTR and the Department of Commerce are working together to defend the right of the United States to continue treating China as a non-market economy in antidumping investigations until China makes the reforms it agreed to when it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).
  • President Trump’s Administration has successfully litigated WTO disputes targeting unfair trade practices and upholding our right to enforce United States trade laws.
    • In February 2018, USTR won a WTO compliance challenge against China’s unfair antidumping and countervailing duties on United States poultry exports and China announced the termination of those duties.

PROTECTING AMERICAN INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY: President Trump has worked to defend America’s intellectual property and proprietary technology from theft and other threats.

  • In August 2017, the Administration initiated a Section 301 investigation into China’s practices related to forced technology transfer, unfair licensing, and intellectual property policies.
  • After USTR completed its Section 301 report in March 2018, the President directed the agencies to explore numerous actions to protect domestic technology and intellectual property.
  • Under President Trump’s leadership:
    • The United States will impose a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of goods imported from China containing industrially significant technology, including those related to the “Made in China 2025” program.  The final list of covered imports will be announced by June 15, 2018.
    • USTR will continue WTO dispute settlement against China originally initiated in March to address China’s discriminatory technology licensing requirements.
    • The United States will implement specific investment restrictions and enhanced export controls for Chinese persons and entities related to the acquisition of industrially significant technology. The list of restrictions and controls will be announced by June 30, 2018.

Illustration: Pixabay

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U.S. Responds to Unfair Trade

There has been significant criticism of President Trump’s tough stance on trade deficits and unfair practices both with China and America’s allies and neighbors. Opposition to the White House move has come not only from the usual political opponents, but even allies within the GOP.  Indeed, Republicans who would never dream of endorsing unilateral disarmament in weapons negotiations appear all too willing to adopt that concept in economic relations.

Interestingly, much of the media, while criticizing the White House for confronting Canada and Europe for their trade practices and threatening retaliatory tmeasures, neglected to mention a key proposal Trump made at the recent G7 meeting: the elimination of all tariffs.

While bluntly confronting Canada and NATO partners and lumping them in with the adversarial Beijing regime may seem harsh, the reality is that the United States economy and job market has suffered significantly.  Remedial steps are required.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing  reports that “Unfair trade practices like dumping, export subsidies, and currency manipulation drove the loss of more than 6.1 million U.S. manufacturing jobs from 1998 to 2010. Today, there is no greater threat to the resurgence in American manufacturing than widening trade deficits and unfair trade practices that go unchecked. New trade agreements must give American workers and businesses tools to aggressively push back against unfair trade practices like currency manipulation, and create a level playing field. Trade agreements already on the books must be strictly enforced. And we need our policymakers to develop and implement a plan to end our trade deficit in manufactured goods, which directly threatens a potential resurgence for American manufacturing.”

U.S. agriculture faces a similar challenge. Mike Thompson, writing in Real Clear Politics  notes that “As global trade continues to expand, it’s important to remember that ‘free trade’ only works if it is ‘fair trade.’ Trade is good for America when that trade is fair. Only when our farmers and other suppliers of goods and services compete on a truly level playing field with their foreign competitors can ‘free trade’ become reality…”
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Stan Ryan, in a Seattle Times article, provides specifics: “… with the stroke of a pen, new Canadian government pricing regulations implemented in February are poised to unfairly take away our markets. The current U.S. administration was correct to stand up against Canada for shutting down U.S. exports of ultra-filtered milk — used to make cheese and yogurt — from farms in the Midwest and Northeast. This sudden change in pricing threatened the livelihoods of U.S. dairy farms. The new Canadian National Ingredients Pricing Strategy, which indirectly subsidizes exports, will further hurt U.S. dairy exports of milk proteins. Since farms across the U.S. depend on a healthy global export market, Canada’s strategy poses a threat to America’s dairy farmers, especially those in the Pacific Northwest, by unfairly underbidding world market prices.”

By far, the greatest offender is China. The Clinton Administration vigorously pursued greater openness to trade with China, and the results proved harmful both to the American economy as a whole and to U.S. manufacturing employment in particular.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2017 “Report to Congress” disclosed that “The hand of the state is… evident in how Beijing treats foreign companies operating in China and in the impact its trade-distorting policies have on its trade partners. Beijing’s discriminatory treatment of U.S. companies and ongoing failure to uphold its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations continue to damage the bilateral relationship. The U.S. trade deficit in goods with China totaled $347 billion in 2016, the second-highest deficit on record. In the first eight months of 2017, the goods deficit reached $239.1 billion, and is on track to surpass last year’s deficit. U.S. companies are feeling increasingly pressured by Chinese policies that demand technology transfers as a price of admission and favor domestic competitors. According to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, 81 percent of U.S. firms doing business in China reported feeling less welcome in 2016 than they did in 2015…China’s foreign investment climate continues to deteriorate as government policy contributes to rising protectionism and unfair regulatory restrictions on U.S. companies operating in China. The newly implemented cybersecurity law illustrates this trend. The law contains data localization requirements and a security review process U.S. and foreign firms claim can be used to discriminatorily advantage Chinese businesses or access proprietary information from foreign firms.”

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Picture: Shanghai (Pixabay)

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White House Responds to Tariff Critics

The White House has responded to the opposition to its tariff announcement concerning aluminum and steel imports, noting “Although the economics profession has converged toward a consensus on certain principles, the Administration’s trade agenda also stands poised to update existing trade relationships in order to maximize the benefits that America’s trade with the world generates for our citizens in the 21st century and beyond… The United States, for instance, faces higher barriers on its exports in markets abroad than producers abroad face on their exports to the U.S. Nothing about the principle of comparative advantage would lend itself to a defense of a status quo that imposes higher barriers to exports on America’s producers than on foreign producers. The global trade system has come under strain due to the influence of countries, like China, that violate market principles and distort the functioning of global markets. When America’s businesses and workers can compete in the global economy on a level playing field, however, our underlying dynamism will allow our economy to flourish. The Administration prioritizes its attempt to create the conditions that, according to the consensus principles in the economics literature, would maximize the benefits accruing to the United States—and produce gains for our trading partners as well.”

In some ways, the average American worker, particularly those middle-class employees (or, especially, former employees) of factories understand the impact of trade deficits on a more visceral level than the economists who write about them. Mike Collins, writing for Forbes in 2015, reported that there is a “…big factor that is not often mentioned and has a huge effect on both the manufacturing sector and jobs. That factor is the growing trade deficit which is really the ultimate determinant of job creation in the U.S… Trade deficits must be financed. A country simply cannot have a trade deficit unless private or government investors are willing to finance it. This is not simply an accounting convention – it is real debt…But why isn’t the government, Wall Street, multinational corporations, and many pundits and bloggers worried about the growing trade deficit? Why is the trade deficit largely ignored while everyone is more concerned about the federal deficit? Wall Street, the Multi-national corporations and the Obama Administration have adopted a policy of appeasement where foreign mercantilism seems to be irrelevant and attempts at balancing trade are ignored. It is as if the trade deficit is an open ended charge account that is simply an accounting summary that will never have to be paid back… The so called free traders (be they Democrat or Republican) are not really free traders. They are supporters of mercantile trade where countries like China and Japan get to manipulate their currencies and use VATs against us to increase their exports and reduce their imports from us. Even though there is a provision in the WTO agreement that prohibits currency manipulation we do nothing about it. As in most economic issues there are winners and losers. The business group that is the biggest winner are the multi-national corporations.”

Those corporations contribute heavily to politicians, and they particularly supported Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who did little to protect the U.S. workers who were the ultimate losers in the nation’s trade deficits.

Kevin Williamson, writing for National Review reports: “The largest Wall Street investment banks are Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Which presidential candidates did these firms and the people associated with them favor? According to OpenSecrets.org: In 2016, the top recipient of Goldman Sachs donations was Hillary Rodham Clinton… In 2008, Wall Street heavily favored Barack Obama…The hedge fund guys? They favored Mrs. Clinton by a factor of (check my English-major math) 2,450 to 1, according to the Wall Street Journal…”
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Is the U.S. being overly protective? Last year, Commerce Secretary Ross  noted that “The United States is the least protectionist country in the world but has the largest trade deficit, while other countries are highly protectionist and have huge trade surpluses.  This cannot continue. We can no longer afford to be ignorant or naive in the aggressive global marketplace, and there is no reason why we should be forced to singlehandedly absorb the $500 billion trade surplus of the rest of the world.”

Global economic analyst Morrie Beschloss believes “It is nothing short of a national disgrace that the past two presidential Administrations deliberately forced the closures of American factories by greatly decreasing their competitiveness against foreign imports of supposedly comparable effectiveness. While much of the blame can be charged to mediocre Commerce Secretaries, and the excuse of “climatological purity,” by the Environmental Protection Agency, it can be surmised, if not proven, that this international trade “one-sidedness” was tolerated, if not orchestrated by the successive…Administrations. …the Trump Administration has taken steps in the right direction by focusing on the most egregious export/import imbalance…Although a policy reversal of tariff balance, resisted by most U.S. conglomerates with foreign subsidiaries and divisions is being considered, it may take years before a partial reversal is set in motion.”

U.S. Commerce Dept. photo

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Trump Attacks Trade Deficit

When President Trump announced his executive orders regarding a 25% tariff on imports of  steel and 10%  on aluminum,, the reaction from Wall Street, major financial interests, the media, and many politicians was uniformly negative.  But support has come from main street, global trade analysts, and American workers.

The White House proclaimed last month that “The United States… faces higher barriers on its exports in markets abroad than producers abroad face on their exports to the U.S. Nothing about the principle of comparative advantage would lend itself to a defense of a status quo that imposes higher barriers to exports on America’s producers than on foreign producers. The global trade system has come under strain due to the influence of countries, like China, that violate market principles and distort the functioning of global markets… The Administration prioritizes its attempt to create the conditions that, according to the consensus principles in the economics literature, would maximize the benefits accruing to the United States—and produce gains for our trading partners as well.”

America’s 2017 trade deficit was $566 billion. That represents about 2.7 percent of GDP. Since 2000, it’s averaged that over $500 billion. In prior decades, the deficit was below 2% GDP.

Despite portrayals by some critics that the tariff move was abrupt, it has been considered since the start of the current White House.  The Department of Commerce  released a report last month revealing that it “found that the quantities and circumstances of steel and aluminum imports ‘threaten to impair the national security,’ as defined by Section 232…”

Key Findings of the Steel Report included:

  • The United States is the world’s largest importer of steel. [but] …imports are nearly four times our exports.
  • Six basic oxygen furnaces and four electric furnaces have closed since 2000 and employment has dropped by 35% since 1998.
  • World steelmaking capacity is 2.4 billion metric tons, up 127% from 2000, while steel demand grew at a slower rate.
  • The recent global excess capacity is 700 million tons, almost 7 times the annual total of U.S. steel consumption. China is by far the largest producer and exporter of steel, and the largest source of excess steel capacity. Their excess capacity alone exceeds the total U.S. steel-making capacity.
  • On an average month, China produces nearly as much steel as the U.S. does in a year. For certain types of steel, such as for electrical transformers, only one U.S. producer remains.
  • As of February 15, 2018, the U.S. had 169 antidumping and countervailing duty orders in place on steel, of which 29 are against China, and there are 25 ongoing investigations.

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recommended to the President had previously recommended consideration of the following:

1.A global tariff of at least 24% on all steel imports from all countries, or 2. A tariff of at least 53% on all steel imports from 12 countries (Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam) with a quota by product on steel imports from all other countries equal to 100% of their 2017 exports to the United States, or 3.A quota on all steel products from all countries equal to 63% of each country’s 2017 exports to the United States.

The problem also should be seen in the overall light of the American trade deficit. In February, The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis  released its latest report on America’s trade status.

According to the analysis, “the goods and services deficit was $53.1 billion in December, up $2.7 billion from $50.4 billion in November, revised. December exports were $203.4 billion, $3.5 billion more than November exports. December imports were $256.5 billion, $6.2 billion more than November imports. The December increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $2.6 billion to $73.3 billion and a decrease in the services surplus of $0.1 billion to $20.2 billion. For 2017, the goods and services deficit increased $61.2 billion, or 12.1 percent, from 2016. Exports increased $121.2 billion or 5.5 percent. Imports increased $182.5    billion or 6.7 percent.”

U.S. Commerce Dept. photo

The Report Concludes Monday.