U.S. TRADE SURPLUSES AND DEFICITS

President Donald Trump says he can't find a country for which we have a trade surplus .*  The problem is we can't rely on the President to tell us the truth because he couldn't have looked very far.  Though we do have a trade deficit overall, there are lots of countries for which we have trade surpluses, e.g. Australia , a surplus of over $12 billion.  Highlighted in the figure is another, Brazil with a trade surplus of $4 billion.  The U.S. has trade surpluses with most South and Central American countries (e.g. Panama over $5 billion) including Argentina and Chili also with $4 billion surpluses like Brazil.  Other key trading partners where we have surpluses are UK, Belgium and the Netherlands.  Surprising to me is the large trading surplus for Hong Kong ($28 billion).  President Trump apparently didn't look hard enough but who is surprised at that?.

In the reference the figure below is interactive:

(Click on figure to enlarge)

* http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/23/trump-cant-find-any-us-trade-surpluses-here-you-go-mr-president.html