Tweety is too dumb to check his advisors advice, or the real, FACTUAL [called "FACTs} numbers.
Tweety has German in his "sights" and will do significant harm to Americans if he does ANYTHING against Germany vis a vis trade.
Twety, here are the numbers that matter: German consumers purchased $50billion from US in 2016, trade deficit went down $10billion that year, Germany diect invest in US businesses was $255billion between 2012-2012 while US direct investment in Germany was $108billion [A "deficit" of $147billion for those who do the math.], and German manufacturing in the United States accounts for 670,000 jobs! Poor American states benefit greatly from German cars built in the US by Amerians!
In case you are not thinking beyond the dollars vs Euros, two more items come up:
1. Germany is part of the EU. Tweety has to work through the EU in any matter of trade.
2. National security comes into play as Tweety invades the trade deficit world, which, by the way, is not even relevant level. Read your economics folks.
"Does the U.S. have a 'massive' trade deficit with Germany, as Donald Trump said?"
By Louis Jacobson on Tuesday, May 30th, 2017 at 5:24 p.m.
" . . . Merkel said at a May 28 campaign event, "The times in which we could fully rely on others are partly over. I have experienced this in the last few days. We Europeans really have to take our destiny into our own hands."
Two days later, Trump fired back on Twitter: "We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change.""
More.
" . . . "massive" seems to be in the eye of the beholder. We’ll review the evidence so you can decide for yourself.How appropriate is the term "massive"?
In the most recent full year -- 2016 -- the U.S. trade deficit in goods with Germany was a little under $65 billion."
More.
""All this means is that U.S. consumers buy more German goods than German consumers buy U.S. goods," de Bolle said. "There is no value judgement in a trade deficit -- it’s simply a matter of accounting and underlying macroeconomic trends."
Shapiro concurred that "bilateral trade deficits are never problematic, or even individually meaningful.""
More.
"Still, getting into a war of words with Germany could cause tangible economic harm, independent experts said.
Germany both invests a large amount of money in the United States and buys a lot of U.S. exports.
Germany ranked fifth among countries in foreign direct investment in the United States in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. Specifically, German entities directly invested $19 billion in the United States that year, the fifth highest of any country, trailing the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland and Canada."
More.
"The six biggest German companies with operations in the United States includes several well-known brand names: Daimler (which includes Mercedes-Benz), Volkswagen, T-Mobile, BMW, BASF, and Siemens.
Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee all have major German-owned automobile factories -- meaning that they employ a lot of workers in high-wage, blue-collar work."
More.
"Destler added that trade policy isn’t even the right lever to use to close the trade deficit.
"Germany could reduce it somewhat by pursuing more stimulative fiscal policies, something Berlin is very reluctant to do," Destler said. "It does not, however, control either its trade or its monetary policy, these being under the jurisdiction of the EU and the European central bank."
And Trump’s intention to cut taxes, Destler added, might only make matters worse by boosting consumption more than production.
Meanwhile, mismanagement of trade policy could spill over into other vital policy areas, such as national security, de Bolle said.
"This kind of rhetoric alienates our trading partners, which also happen to be strategic international allies," she said. "It adds to the perception that the U.S. is no longer a trustworthy partner not only for matters of trade, but also for matters of international diplomacy. Trade and international diplomacy go hand in hand.""
