President Trump repeatedly has pointed out just how much money leaves the U.S. due to trade deals, and other factors. The U.S. Census has now revealed in a new report just how much of that money is going bye-bye, and where it’s going. The grand total is over $734 billion.
Terence P. Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of CNSnews.com, has waded through the many columns of new numbers from the federal agency, and provides this telling summary:
“The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $734,316,300,000 in 2016,” Mr. Jeffrey said. “During 2016, the U.S. imported $2,188,940,500,000 in goods but exported only $1,454,624,200,000.”
He found that the People’s Republic of China was the greatest contributor to the U.S. merchandise trade deficit for the year: the U.S. imported $462,813,000,000 in goods from China while exporting only $115,775,100,00 in goods to China.
Japan was the second-largest contributor to the deficit, and here we will round the numbers off for the sake of clarity. We imported $132 billion worth of stuff from Japan, they took $63 billion of our stuff. Germany was third in the deficit derby; we ended up with a $65 billion deficit there. Mexico is fourth in line; the deficit here is $63 billion — something for Mr. Trump to mull over when he considers the complexities of the barrier wall on our southern border.
Last in line is Ireland. We imported $45 billion from the green isle, they bought $9 billion worth of merchandise from us.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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