About those tariffs

The Canadian, Mexican and Chinese imports make less than 3% of our or GDP

While we have a fairly small trade deficit with Canada, we have a much larger one with Mexico. That is to say we export much less to those countries than we import from them. But even within that trade deficit, we are not looking at giant numbers.

Neither do we actually import all that much from China, in the grand scheme of things, although our deficit there is much larger, mainly because they simply don't buy much from us.

Now these are dirty little secrets (along with the large scale tariffing that is being placed on the US) that people do not like to talk about for some reason. Apparently it is perfectly okay for other countries to manipulate the markets and make sure they take advantage of the United States. It's almost like children mooching off their parents, something that seems to follow even into adulthood. There is a certain entitlement that many of these smaller countries have that they can just take advantage of their rich neighbors, or in the case of China, that they can take advantage of their fiscal rival. But, we are like the loving parents, looking out for our dependents, even if it means we have to scale back or suffer just a bit. Then suddenly, we become the bad guy the first time we say no, and then there is a bunch of yelling and screaming and tantrum throwing.

I think this is where we are at to some degree. Finally dad is saying no, it's time to grow up and stop mooching off your parents. Pay your own bills and stop using us for money. Or maybe that is just how I am seeing it.