U.S. National Debt Showing Significant Correlation to Years of Free Trade Deficits

Abstract

"The U.S. free trade deficit has accumulated to $6.57 trillion over the last 20 years and $7.5 trillion since 1971. The U.S. national debt now totals around $12.1 trillion. In fact, from 1990 to 2007 the trade deficit totaled $5.51 trillion which was fairly close to the national debt in those years that totaled $6.1 trillion. Thus, the trade deficit has accumulated to a sum of the same type of magnitude as the national debt. For every type of trade, whether it is an import or an export, there are tax consequences. Such consequence of a trade deficit may be correlated to the national debt. Our study in fact finds that there exists in the raw data an 87% mathematical correlation between the national debt and the free trade deficit in logically selected time periods when stable (non excessive) government spending and trading occurred. As well the X-Y relationship observed in the raw data indicates that the trade deficit is linked to approximately from $1.7 to $2.1 trillion of the national debt (i.e. worst case, 17% of America’s current national debt)."