Jay Bryson Trade Quotations

My expectation was the trade deficit would increase anyway into the low 60 (billion dollar a month) range. A $70 billion (monthly trade gap) sounds like a stretch, but we could be looking at the mid to high 60s now.

Sooner or later, foreigners will stop financing the deficit. But at this point they show no signs of slowing down. If there were trade barriers that caused Americans to buy significantly less imports, production here would go up a little, but the thing that would take the brunt of the reduction is that our spending would go down as prices went up. We would have less of everything.

It's very easy to get the trade gap to narrow, have a recession in the United States to cut spending here. But I don't think anyone wants that to happen.

If there is an 'issue' with the US external accounts, it is not the bilateral trade deficit with China but rather the overall deficit that the US incurs. After all, the large current account deficit means that the US spends more than it produces, which requires financing from abroad.

The economy in the third quarter had a fair amount of momentum and oil prices were skyrocketing. You are going to see some $60 billion trade figures if for no other reason than the price of oil.