Two years after promising to eliminate deficits in the federal budget and the balance of trade, President Donald Trump instead presides over colossal increases in both. Trump’s Commerce Department announced on Wednesday that the trade deficit in goods hit $891 billion in 2018, up more than $80 billion from 2017. A day earlier, Trump’s Treasury Department disclosed that the budget deficit for the first three months of this budget year hit $310 billion, a 77 percent increase over the same period in the previous year. Most economists anticipate that budget deficits will increase even further in the next economic downturn, which will drive up the national debt all the faster. It did, however, push out a news release pointing to a New York Post op-ed written by Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, in which he praises the president’s “America First” trade policy ― but fails to mention the higher trade deficit.

Source: Huffington Post March 06, 2019 23:39 UTC