The US has a trade deficit, and according to Trump, it must change into a trade surplus with every country they do business with.

That's how he wants it.

Can you enforce that?

No...

If you and I don't want American goods, but Americans do want our goods, Trump can jump through hoops, but the trade deficit will
remain.

He can then only try to change things with tariffs, but that only works if there are alternatives. There is no alternative for ASML's
products. No matter how high the import tariffs become, the US will want to buy those machines. There *is* an alternative for European
cheese. It will no longer be sold to the US with a 50% import tariff. And Europeans will choose alternatives to American products...
Everyone loses.

The makers of products with a 50% tariff will therefore have to find other markets for their product, or try to import the product via
a third country...

A trade deficit is one thing. If you combine that with a significant government deficit, then you create an economic problem.

Trump says one thing but does another.

Trump says he wants trade surpluses, but in practice, his measures don't work because there are no alternatives for the US. Of course,
he can argue that the US has enough trees in its national parks for wood to build houses. But does the US want to sacrifice its
national parks for that, and who will then clear those trees, because the logging sector in the US is already operating at 100%
capacity. The US is driving away the foreigners needed for this with its anti-foreigner measures.

That's why they prefer trees from Canada. Canadians can also supply wood at good prices. This way, the national parks in the US can
continue to bring tourist money into the economy, but the trade deficit with Canada does increase. The question is whether that's a bad
thing.

Losing tourist money is probably worse. Many of those tourists came from Canada, because they don't have such beautiful national parks
as the US still has.

Moreover, Trump backs down on the introduction of import tariffs every time a country pushes back. So, those trade deficits will not
improve, no matter what Trump says.

But Trump also indicated that the government would spend less. That's also not true. Trump's beautiful big tax bill will increase the
deficit by 3 trillion dollars.

The US must once again grow its way out of problems... Republicans apply that trick every time, and every time, growth lags and US debt
increases significantly. It is simply taking out a mortgage on the future.

A future that isn't there, because the US is hollowing itself out with these government deficits and increasing debts.

Trump is accelerating that process. It will mean that the dollar will lose its status as a reserve currency.

The latter is important. With that status, the US can create money and, in effect, force the world to accept those dollars. That is a
very lucrative business for the US. After all, how much does it cost to create a dollar out of nothing? For now, however, there is no
alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency. The euro is a small currency compared to the dollar and for many countries just as bad
as the dollar. After all, it was the US and Europe that imposed the dollar as a reserve currency on the world. The Chinese currency is
not trusted internationally, and BRICS has no dried cement yet that holds it firmly together.

Could Bitcoin then become the reserve currency? No. After all, there's nothing behind it. Behind the dollar was the gigantic economy of
the US. That economy could still yield interest for government bonds. But Bitcoin is at best like gold. You can put your capital in it,
but then it yields you nothing. After all, there are no interest benefits. The alternative is to invest in a foreign country by buying
infrastructure, houses, and companies, but the trend for that is currently wrong. Globalization is, after all, passé.

If the US loses its status and the dollar falls, then the world economy is doomed to be severely affected.

The world will then have to learn to work without a reserve currency in which everyone trades.

We haven't been used to that for two centuries. Before the dollar, the British pound was the world's reserve currency.

No economist has yet succeeded in explaining to Trump how the economy works and how the world needs the dollar as a reserve currency.
The US also lives in that world. If the dollar falls as a reserve currency, the US will also feel the consequences severely.

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