Trump administration may tweak data to re-calculate trade deficit

[jetcat]

". . . The leading idea under consideration would exclude from U.S. exports any goods first imported into the country, such as cars, and then transferred to a third country like Canada or Mexico unchanged, these people told The Wall Street Journal.

Economists say that approach would inflate trade deficit numbers because it would typically count goods as imports when they come into the country but not count the same goods when they go back out, known as re-exports.

Data on trade balances and surpluses, widely followed by Congress, are at the center of a political battle over whether existing trade agreements should be retained, renegotiated or tossed out altogether. A larger trade deficit would give the Trump administration ammunition in arguing that trade deals need to be renegotiated, and might help boost political support for imposing tariffs. . . ."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-administration-may-tweak-data-to-re-calculate-trade-deficit-2017-02-19

See also https://qz.com/917039/donald-trump-has-a-plan-to-boost-the-trade-deficit-in-one-easy-step/

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This is raw politics. There is nothing even remotely logical about taking re-exports off of the export side of the ledger and leaving them on the the import side. It doesn't make a lick of economic sense, and serves only to feed his base an apocryphal story line about trade deficits. It is, in short, par for the course with Trump -- fabricating an alternate reality one factoid at a time.

[pansypoo53219]

1. fact, damned facts, and statistics. if only they knew about alternative stats.