New Times / Letter To The Editor

Balance trade so we can afford to live

Emma Thompson

If we wish to address American unemployment and national debt, we need to balance international trade, especially with China. The current deficit in trade with China is almost $300,000,000,000 a year, causing a loss of millions of American jobs. We need to demand that the Chinese buy the same amount of goods and services from us as we buy from them (considering multilateral trade, etc.).

In a rational world, free trade and balanced trade should be the same thing. While “free trade” is touted as a rational economic philosophy, in real life it is manipulated and used as a political scam to dis-empower communities and justify moving American jobs and technology to other countries.

In our current real world, Americans need to demand balanced trade if we don’t want to further damage our economy. If we balance trade, then consumer goods may become more expensive, but we will be able to afford them. More of us will be working. We should not have to borrow from China or sell our assets to run a sputtering economy.

We need American jobs so that we can afford ourselves. Unemployment, national debt, personal debt, sustainability, increasing homelessness, and increasing class divisions will not be successfully addressed without balancing trade.