How large are US related external imbalances?

Doha, Qatar: It is no secret for analysts and investors that US President Donald J. Trump has a strong policy preference to reform the current global...

Doha, Qatar: It is no secret for analysts and investors that US President Donald J. Trump has a strong policy preference to reform the current global trading and financial system. For decades, even before becoming a politician, Trump has been vocal about his negative views on large US current account deficits and the country’s net debtor position against the rest of the world, also supporting the re-shoring of manufacturing to his country, QNB said in its economic commentary.

During his first term as president (2017-2021), however, Trump did not act too aggressively to transform his policy preferences into government action. 

The US president was then constrained by administrative roadblocks, less political capital and experience, and more reliance on mainstream advisors that held traditional views about trade and finance.

In a more decisive break from the post-war liberal consensus on free trade, President Trump’s 2025 agenda seems to embrace his “mercantilist” or “protectionist” vision that casts global commerce as a battleground for national wealth appropriation and accumulation. 

A t the heart of this reorientation is a very particular diagnosis that the country’s external imbalances are the result of asymmetric economic relationships, i.e., unreciprocated market access, persistent foreign subsidies, intellectual property theft, and the burdens of underwriting “global public goods,” from reserve currency provision to military security.