The United States Commerce department reported that America's trade deficit for 2019, was $616.8 billion. This thus signifies that America imported far more goods from various countries in this world then it was able to sell to those other countries, of which, no single country had a higher trade deficit than the United States, and the United States has consistently run a trade deficit each and every year, of this 21st century. So that, in essence America trades its dollars for goods, which might even seem like a smart and sensible thing to do, for something of tangible value has been received for those dollars so spent; yet, recognize that another way of looking upon these constant trade deficits -- is that America helps to keep other countries and their businesses operating at a higher capacity and thus favors by the expenditure of their dollars the industries of foreign countries over their own domestic companies, which thereby means that less Americans are employed, and that there are less opportunities for good and stable employment for Americans, in whole.
The richness of a given nation could, in theory, be judged upon which nation purchases and thereby consumes the most goods; but in actuality, the richness of a given nation really comes down to who sells the most products to other countries, because that nation that has the highest trade surplus is a country that is typically on the right side of good economic growth and further is on the right side of saving that money so earned by their sales, so as to provide that country and its people with more flexibility, more opportunity, and the accumulation of wealth, going forward. Whereas, those countries in which what they have bought exceeds what they have sold, have, in principle, drawn down their savings so as to purchase something today, as opposed to saving what they have, for something else, tomorrow, and are thereby limiting their flexibility, their opportunity, and are compromising their wealth.
Fortunately, for the United States, the reserve currency for the entire world is the United States dollar. This signifies that the go-to currency for business transactions for companies as well as for nation-states is typically the dollar, and because transactions throughout the world are primarily done with those dollars, this gives the United States, a tremendous and unique advantage over all the other nations, combined; for this means that the largest financial institutions of America, are able to extract their small fee for those transactions, from both buyer as well as seller, from one country to another, for providing the liquidity as well as for their reliance upon the historic stability of the dollar. So then, trade deficits, from the perspective of the financial world, is not something that they are especially concerned about, for the more business so generated, the more profit there is to be had, and that therefore supersedes any concern that these financial institutions might have about domestic trade deficits.
Yet, when the business of America, switches from being one of what is good for those that are the domestic industries of America and thereby their exports; and is replaced by a mantra of what is good only for the financial sector, so that the apparent chief export of America becomes the dollar, in all of its many forms, then that sole dependency upon that dollar is subject to the suffering of having too many of the same goods in that one basket, and because of America's lack of diversification, as well as its inability to correct its trade balance, this will leave a lot of Americans, ill prepared for the real hard times that lay ahead, for all those that consume much more than they produce.