Big news about the U.S. trade deficit was reported yesterday. The Department of Commerce revealed that the U.S. trade deficit for goods and services was nearly $500 billion in 2010 – a 33% increase over the trade deficit for all of 2009. Over half of that was due to a $273 billion trade deficit with China. The United States has a job-stifling trade deficit that is growing, and growing fast!

The deficit is growing because as Americans are starting to increase their purchasing again after a thrifty 2009, they are buying imported goods more than ever before, often from countries like China. In fact, the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 is by far the biggest trade deficit a country has ever had with another single country in history.

The U.S. trade deficit is having a significant negative impact on job growth. Experts estimate that every $1 billion in exports creates an additional 6,000 jobs in the U.S. Yet, despite $163 billion more in U.S. exports in 2010 (which created almost 1 million new jobs), jobs still are not being created in sufficient numbers to get the economy going or increase employment largely due to offsetting increases in imported goods. While increasing exports is a worthwhile goal, we cannot look for that to be the sole solution to our trade imbalance problems. We need Americans to cut back our reliance on imports by buying American.

We can solve our country’s economic problem ourselves by changing our buying habits just slightly and buying American more often.

The average adult consumes $700 per month in imported goods. If we could reduce that to $517 per person per month, we would have no trade deficit at all. With no trade deficit, we would likely have 3-4% unemployment. All we need to do is reduce our consumption of imported goods 25% to have jobs again in this country. That will secure our long-term economic future (a.k.a. our children’s future).

Can you cut 25% of the imported goods you buy and replace them with American-made goods? If you will do that, you will have done your part to set our country back on the path to economic security.

That is why I am buying American. Please join me. Take the Buy American Challenge today!

Until next time, here’s to doing what we can to support our country by buying American.

Randy