Former US official: US trade deficit issue

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00:00OK, but when you hear President Trump saying things along the lines of, you know, America's

00:06trade partners have been ripping off the United States, would you tend to agree with that

00:12assessment?

00:14I think when you look at the balance of trade, the United States has been running an incredibly

00:18large deficit for a long time and a very large deficit with some very specific countries.

00:26Not in the Middle East so much, but elsewhere in the world, particularly China, Canada and

00:31Mexico in America's immediate view.

00:36And so what the president is seeking to do, as I understand it, is to try and create a

00:41rebalance there, which I support.

00:44Tariffs can be a very blunt instrument.

00:46I understand he's talking with his advisers about whether to just do a permanent universal

00:52flat rate somewhere between 15 and 25 percent on everything versus a case by case sort of

01:00retaliatory tariff structure, country by country, product by product.

01:06If I were advising the president, I'd go for retaliatory.