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Notes -
From what I understand, Import/Export is specifically goods and services exchanged for money, so it does not include many financial instruments, such as direct investment into a foreign country or leaving your money at a foreign bank. So a country can run a long-term trade deficit indefinitely as long as it can re-capture the difference this way. Which is especially easy if you just-so happen to be the financial headquarter of the world. But yes, many countries saving in US currency is also an option.
I agree that, if anything, this implies a trade deficit is good for you.
Yeah it's not that foreign governments / central banks buying the currency counts for imports/exports. It's just that that's the required action to counteract the natural sell-pressure on the net-importer currency and the buy-pressure on the net-exporter currency, which would otherwise cause the exchange rate to move and would eventually end up evening out the imports & exports, dynamically.
So I believe the agency is pretty much all on the side of the trade surplus nation/currency, because anyone can issue their own currency and buy foreign reserves (which will be called 'establishing/maintaining an exchange rate peg' if formally acknowledged). No one can really force themselves into the trade deficit side.
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