Economic growth depends on deregulation, tax cuts and the budget deficit, not on the balance of trade.

President Donald Trump has made reducing the trade deficit a central part of his "American First Trade Policy." Here's what you need to know.

The prevailing dislike for imports among America’s political class has an old and bipartisan pedigree. At least since the Carter administration — the last time the country’s broad balance of trade was in the black — members of both parties have bemoaned the country’s persistent trade deficit as evidence of some deep national weakness.