Trade and Tariffs: Show me the numbers.

[MarathonMike]

With all the conflict and discussion about trade imbalances, what seems to be missing is specifics on exactly what the imbalance is country by country. It is more than just the trade deficit of imports vs exports. There are VAT taxes, tariffs on each commodity or product, currency manipulation, IP theft, etc. I agree with President Trump in using Tariffs as a tool to force foreign countries to be "more fair". Discussion has yielded nothing in over 30 years and will continue to yield nothing

I believe the negotiations would be much more effective if we knew that China, for example, has a net 20% trade advantage (a guess) over the US.

Secondly if we know what the numbers are then President Trump has strong footing from which to negotiate. Without the numbers, it helps China, the EU, Mexico etc. pretend like they are the victim. Expose the trade advantages country by country and then set the goals for reducing the advantages.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

What is a "trade advantage"?

Define your terms.

 

[MarathonMike]

A trade advantage is a combination of a trade surplus and any taxes or tariffs assigned to an import. It also should include the estimated impact of IP theft. That is more difficult to quantify but a conservative number could and should be assigned to it.

 

[depotoo]

A trade advantage is a combination of a trade surplus and any taxes or tariffs assigned to an import. It also should include the estimated impact of IP theft. That is more difficult to quantify but a conservative number could and should be assigned to it.

It has been-

IP theft pervades international trade in goods and services due to lack of legal enforcement and national industrial policies that encourage IP theft by public, quasi-private, and private entities. While some indicators show that the problem may have improved marginally, the theft of IP remains a grave threat to the United States. Since 2013, at the release of the IP Commission Report, U.S. policy mechanisms have been markedly enhanced but gone largely unused. We estimate that the annual cost to the U.S. economy continues to exceed $225 billion in counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets and could be as high as $600 billion.1 It is important to note that both the low- and high-end figures do not incorporate the full cost of patent infringement—an area sorely in need of greater research. We have found no evidence that casts doubt on the estimate provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in November 2015 that economic espionage through hacking costs $400 billion per year.2 At this rate, the United States has suffered over $1.2 trillion in economic damage since the publication of the original IP Commission Report more than three years ago.
http://www.ipcommission.org/report/IP_Commission_Report_Update_2017.pdf