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Notes -
You absolutely can. This is easy to see in a world where other countries exist: any policy which in effect borrows from them, and pays for imports with the borrowed money, will do so. There's reason to think this is happening: the US government takes out debt to raise money, spends it on things, some of which spending will ultimately be used to buy imported things. The main question is to what extent is that happening.
At some later point in the future, we'll need to have the money to pay things back.
Of course, the question is how large this effect is. Per this website, it looks like our recent trade deficits is about a trillion dollars worth, give or take. It looks like US GDP is about 25 trillion, so that would look like about 4% of our economy from the last year was borrowed?
(I'm not an economist; someone who knows better, please help. I don't know how bad that is.)
I'll note that that's not just government debt or something. The US dollar being used as the world reserve currency would have a similar effect: people want dollars, leading to a net import of goods.
I'm not sure whether there's a way to do so if an economy were isolated; I think you'd be right in that case.
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