“I have a deficit in my grocery store”: Senator Rand Paul makes fun of Trump’s strange vision of the trade

Tuesday, the republican senator of Kentucky Rand Paul has derived the unusual prospects of President Donald Trump on international trade, deficits and rates, calling them “back and overturned”.

He is “based on an error,” Paul said to CNBC in an interview with the Capitol.

“The mistake is this: that in some way in an exchange, someone must lose, that somehow when you exchange with someone, there is a loser and someone is taking advantage of you, and China is tearing you away or Japan is tearing you,” he said, characterizing Trump’s opinion.

It is not a rip -off, it is a purchase and the United States have been quite powerful and rich that you can buy anything you want from any country you want, and it is not a bad thing, underlined Paul.

“Any trade that occurs on the market is mutually advantageous,” said Paul. “If we are in a free company and you want to sell me your coat and I give your $ 200 for this, we both agree and we are both happy with the trade.”

Consumers do the same thing when they make the decision to buy something to Walmart who may have purchased from China, he observed.

“You could artificially make this accounting between the countries and say, Oh, commercial deficit. Look at this commercial deficit. But I have a commercial deficit with my grocery store,” added Paul.

It is the same topic Economy professor of the University of Chicago Brent Neiman made on Monday in a Guest essay in The New York Times. He quoted the Nobel Prize Nobel Prize Robert Solow, who once joked: “I have a chronic deficit with my barberWho does not buy something damn from me. ”

Neiman explained: “Commercial imbalances between two countries can emerge for many reasons that have nothing to do with protectionism … (a) the model reflects the differences in natural resources, on the comparative advantage and on the development levels. The deficit numbers do not suggest, not to mention the unfair competition.”

Irony of fate, the The White House mentioned Neiman’s research and three collaborators To support the White House plan on rates. A key problem? They “wrong, very wrong”, from politics to tariff calculations, according to Neiman.

Paul supported Tuesday on Fox News that the American economy is increasingly healthy with more, no less international trade.

“The greater the commercial deficit, more prosperityY. The lower the commercial deficit of the least prosperity, “he insisted.

He promised that he will not support Trump rates because they will damage the savings for the retirement of the Americans with a probable slowed economy and continued the weakest share market.

Paolo also derives Trump’s claims on rates and his calculations to determine the new rates he imposes on foreign goods (which will be mainly borne by American consumers).

The astronomical figures that Trump affirmed would be “Mutually” (but they are not) They were based on a cooking equation that took the US commercial deficit with a particular country, dividing it by the total of goods imported from that country and therefore dividing it by two. At best, according to Neiman, those figures are at least four times higher than they make sense.

“We have to start (with) talking about the truth,” Paul said to the CNBC, indicating Trump’s exaggerated claims on Canadian rates on Lactor -Lactiers -U.S. Caseari.

“One of the things they say with Canada is:” Oh, there are rates of 270 % on dairy products -caseari ranging from the United States in Canada. “Well, do you know what the real rates are?