Jameson Greer

Now, the trade deficit is a big portion of the current account, so it certainly is a driver of it.

But we also talk about things like our net investment income position, where we're $26 trillion in the hole.

So there are a variety of things that contribute to a balance of payments deficit.

And so folks who are out there with this kind of over-simple strawman argument that we're just equating a trade deficit to a balance of payments deficit, they're just wrong.

They don't even understand.

I don't think they've read the proclamation.

Sure.

So when the president put his trade program into place starting in April, every month from April through December 2025, the trade deficit goods went down year on year.

That's exactly what happened.

So from April to December, the trade deficit in goods went down by 17%, won 7%.

When we look at, you know, is the trade policy working, we're looking at the direction, the trend, and the trade deficit, so that's going the right way.

We're looking at real wages.

Are they going up?

Are people being paid more to produce here?

And they are.

We have average weekly earnings that are up 4.4% over the year.

And we're looking at what's happening with manufacturing.

And we're seeing a lot more purchases of capital goods.

We're seeing starts on factories.

And so that's going the right direction.