US trade deficit is largely a fiction created by corporate tax evasion.
Workers for companies like Apple create incredibly value software that is shipped around the world, but the value of that work doesn't show up in our export numbers because Apple and other companies don't want to pay taxes on the revenues. Instead:
"if you buy an iPhone in Europe or Asia, the intellectual-property rights contained in your phone actually belong to Apple subsidiaries in Ireland … Apple charges those subsidiaries relatively little for the rights to this intellectual property, yet allows them to collect most of the money Apple makes from selling the phone. In 2011 the Irish subsidiaries…collected two-thirds of Apples worldwide pretax income...
As a result of this transfer pricing structure described in the Senate report, technically speaking, Apple doesn’t export very many “design” or “software” services. The relatively low price it charges to its offshore subsidiary reduces service exports in the balance of payments while inflating the income line in the balance of payments."
And now Trump will use that supposed trade deficit to justify massive tax cuts for businesses to help them "bring production home" to the U.S. So first taxpayers lost when these companies evaded taxes in the first place, and now they will lose a second time as the fiction of the trade deficit is used to slash taxes for the wealthy again.