My Personal Trade Deficit Is Killing Me—or So Trump Would Have You Believe

A few days ago, my lunch was as follows. Besides some Chilean grapes I had acquired via Lucio and a host of other, unknown middlemen (gracias al Mano Invisible), I had some homemade Oaxaca-style cheese and some homemade tortillas I purchased from local people who peddle their products along the beach road. (Oh, yes, I seasoned my quesadillas with some very tasty locally made salsa picante de habanero y pina.) Well, so what?

You see, it got me to thinking. I am running a terrible trade deficit with the local Mexicans. I keep giving them pesos, and all they give me in return are delicious foods and very helpful labor services from time to time. As President Trump would tell you, this is an awful situation for anyone to be in.

If I’m ever going to be as prosperous as Trump is making the USA, I will have to find a way to get the local people to buy my consulting services, while I buy nothing from them. By accumulating a pile of worthless pesos—as worthless as the foreign currency payments that U.S. exporters gain when they only hoard them, rather than using them directly or indirectly to finance imports—I will make myself Great Again.

I may get pretty hungry in the process, but what the hell, I’ll be as Great as Trumpian America. After all, as any mercantilist will tell you—and Trump tells you incessantly—the only thing that matters is getting a lot of money by selling to foreigners, whereas getting a lot of foreign-made goods and services is a terrible thing.