What’s the old adage about lies, damn lies, and statistics? Deficits and trade balances are a lot like that – you can fool with the numbers to prove just about anything, whether it’s empirically true or not. It has a lot to do with the what is considered trade, what is considered an expenditure, and so on.
The US is largely a rich country. Lots of people with a lot of disposable income. So it’s entirely possible that the US is paying out more to other countries than we are taking in., But that’s a symptom – that’s not the real problem.
There are two underlying problems:
1) the US doesn’t do its own manufacturing any more. We have farmed it out to a hundred other countries. Time was that anything you bought was Made in USA – but companies moved their manufacturing plants everywhere else for cost reasons (didn’t want to pay US salaries) so everything is an import. That move took 50 years, and it is kicking us in the ass right now.
2. What the US does still manufacture is not wanted by other countries. Yes, there is some manufacturing done here – but foreign countries don’t want, for cultural, pricing, or other reasons. The US manufactures, largely, for a US market, and our consumer needs aren’t what the rest of the world wants. So we’re trying to sell stuff they don’t need.
But to directly respond to your question – @LostInParadise – the foreign trade numbers you read and hear about are jiggered and screwed with to make a political point. They are about as true as anything else Trump has said.