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It is stupid. Trade deficit is basically about buying things on credit. Not good in itself, but it doesn't mean that you are buying bad things. Americans buy that stuff because they really like it. It is a good deal.
Now you could argue that going deeper into debt is problematic. You buy too much cheap staff from Walmart with the credit card? What can you do? Maybe stop buying (austerity policy, increase of taxes) or get a better paying job.
Growth supporters suggest the second but maybe sometimes the first is also needed.
Trump suggest a different way. Put a tax on cheap Walmart stuff, even so much tax, so that you would quit your well paying job and start making all these Walmart things yourself. It will make you poorer because Chinese provide this stuff by paying their workers less. You will lose your salary in your high tech job and instead will get paid much less in some factory. And nobody outside the US will buy the stuff you make because initially it will be of low quality. It takes many years to learn to manufacture quality things. The learning curve is real.
Tariffs were used 100 years ago and abandoned like we abandoned ineffective treatments in medicine. Some poor countries still use them because they are so bad at collected tax that tariffs is the only way they manage to finance government.
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