3 Decades of U.S. Trade Deficits

Massive U.S trade deficits have decimated American Industry and cost millions of American workers their jobs. We import much more than we export. Since 1975 we have gone from a  $12.4 billion trade surplus to a projected $729 billion (ACTUAL: $765 billion) trade deficit. The Commerce Department Census Bureau table of U.S. balance of trade for goods and services from 1975 to 2006 gives the data that this graph so dramatically illustrates. In this case especially, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Neither the graph nor the table show the devastation to American industry and American workers and their families. To the American family. To family values and survival. 

Three Decades Upside Down,

Under Water and Sinking Fast 

 1975 - $ 12.4 Billion Surplus

2006 Projected - $ 729 Billion Deficit

2006 Actual - $ 765.27 Billion Deficit 

Are we suckers, or what? Can’t we do better than this? Is this the same country that won “The Great War” and World War II with our mighty industrial machine? Is this the same country that bailed out Europe and Asia? Is this the country that has inspired the world with our technology, inventiveness, engineering skills, guts and sheer determination? It sure doesn’t look that way. Is this the same country that invented the closest facsimiles to freedom and free enterprise in the history of the world?

For the United States to be a second tier industrial power, we may as well be number ninety nine. If you want to see the future of America, look around at the third world. If you want to see the future, study the countries that own the U.S. debt. They are eating our lunch, breakfast and dinner. See how they treat their own people. How do you think they’ll treat us, who they don’t really like anyway, when they call in our paper and take over?