Talk:Balance of trade

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Improve chart 'US trade balance from 1960'

Vertical axis measurement unit should be corrected as 'Million USD' (see heading 'Value in millions of dollars' in source https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/gands.pdf ) 2003:C2:770A:4563:F4A3:8139:EE79:F839 (talk) 06:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Economists reject the idea that a trade deficit is detrimental to a nation's economy, and the idea that a bilateral trade deficit is inherently bad."

How does a sentence like this slip into an encyclopedia, and why are all the references anti-Trump stuff? "Economists" don't reject this idea; economists are the people that both express this idea, object to it, or more often have very complex views about what is a very complex subject. I'm not deleting it anonymously because it will just be reverted, but I hope someone with a sense pride in Wikipedia does.~2025-33118-81 (talk) 20:28, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reference for that claim also does not quite endorse the statement. There certainly are economists who endorse keeping a low or negative trade deficit, Ha-Joon Chang comes to mind as a prominent defender of that idea, especially for third world economies seeking to develop their own forces of production and reduce dependence on foreign economic powers. Import-substitution

I agree that line is egregious and needs to be changed to suggest most economists agree that a trade deficit is not harmful, and this claim should be properly sourced to some survey of economists on the issue (I'm sure NEBR has done at least one). Situwannabe (talk) 07:29, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]