Viewing trade deficits at personal level shows folly of Trump’s tactics

Inspired by President Donald Trump’s insistence that all U.S. trading partners buy as much from us as we do from them, I have been trying to apply the concept to my personal affairs. I have a problem with my local grocery chains, Aldi and Publix. I buy a lot from them, but they don’t buy any of the lectures or writing that I do for a living. The balance of trade is horrible. I am thinking about speaking to the managers at both places and asking, if not demanding, that they arrange for me to deliver some lectures on the economy in their stores.

Darn it. I have a similar problem with the local laundry and drugstores. I regularly have prescriptions filled and clothes cleaned. But do they ever offer to buy a policy analysis or lecture from me? Never!

Of course, there are others that buy a lot more from me than I do from them. I have a positive balance of trade with George Mason University and Elliott-Davis PLC, a regional accounting firm. Both employ me for lectures and research, even though I don’t buy anything from them. That’s the way it should be with all my suppliers.

But what if Aldi, Publix, the laundries and drugstores turn a deaf ear to my demand that they bring my trade deficit with them into balance? What if they just look at me like I am crazy when I tell them that they should buy as much from me as I do from them? If that happens, I suppose I could demand they raise their own prices. Better yet, why not place my own tariff on their goods? For every dollar I spend, I’ll throw a quarter down the drain outside, making products 25 percent more expensive (at least for me). And I will buy less as a result.

But so what! I will have made progress in bringing the various personal trade accounts that I’m currently “losing” with my preferred suppliers into balance — or better yet into a surplus. And I will have proven that these big suppliers can’t push me around. Of course, I will be poorer and so will they. In fact, if everyone balanced their trade accounts, we would all be poorer.

Maybe this is the lesson that our president is trying desperately to teach us. By placing tariffs on goods from suppliers who sell us more than we sell them, and having us suffer the consequences, he is generously teaching us that we will all be better off, collectively, in a world where trade is free.

BRUCE YANDLE,