If one looks at the trade patterns of the global economy's two biggest players, two facts leap out:
(1) While the United States runs a trade deficit with almost everyone, including Canada, Mexico, China, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, not to mention the oil-exporting countries, the largest deficit is with China.
If trade data were re-calculated to reflect the country of origin of various components of value-added, the general picture would not change, but the relative magnitudes would: higher U.S. deficits with Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, and a dramatically lower deficit with China.
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