Sorry, We Do Not Have a Trade Deficit

‘Thank goodness for Kevin McCarthy!” isn’t something one says every day, but in the matter of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s backward and destructive plan to resurrect 19th-century tariffs, the gentleman from California is invaluable. Trump wants to impose 35 percent tariffs on . . . somebody. He does not seem quite sure. One of the reasons for that is that Trump has the question of trade deficits mixed up in his head with the question of offshoring and, like most Americans, he does not understand either of them very well.