Trade is not zero-sum. Expanded trade has historically tended to support economic growth, which generates more spoils to be divvied up for all.

American factories have increased production over the years, in part by drawing on a global supply chain to get what they need. A construction machinery plant in Illinois may buy ball bearings from China, glass displays from South Korea, computer chips from Malaysia and other parts from Mexico, some of them forged with American-made steel.

Obsessing over the balance of trade with any single country misses all of that. It also distracts from the force that, by many accounts, is the real threat to employment: automation. The decisive problem facing American workers is that making more products has not translated into sufficient numbers of new jobs, leaving millions of people searching for full-time work at wages high enough to pay the bills.

Economists generally dismiss bilateral trade deficits as essentially meaningless, for reasons easily recognizable in the rest of everyday life. Most people surely run lopsided trade deficits with their dentists, handing these professionals their dollars without expecting them to purchase anything in return.