Tolerable Trade

In the years leading up to the 2008/09 Housing Bust, the monthly US trade deficit regularly hit $70 billion/month, or $840 billion/year. At the time, that was a whopping 6% of GDP. Now, the US trade deficit is running at a much higher record rate of $90 billion/month or $1.1 trillion/year. But the US economy is much bigger. As a result, the higher number is just 4.5% of annual GDP.