Growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us (2003) [pdf]

When they talk about trade deficits do they take into account tourism and other cross-border services?

Or is it just goods, and in that case why focus on goods?

Only goods, at least for the EU the 100+B trade deficit for services in favor of the US is carefully left out.

Generally they are just goods.

It’s much easier to measure physical goods crossing customs. It’s very difficult to measure whether that guy in your restaurant was a tourist or not. And that’s the simple case believe it or not…

This is one of the reasons service oriented economies seem to run huge deficits…

> When they talk about trade deficits do they take into account tourism and other services?

If the USA wants tourists, they better ensure not to annoy tourists by their visa policy, or even by detaining tourists:

> Germany Issues Travel Warning for US

> https://www.newsweek.com/germany-issues-travel-warning-us-20...

That is 100B of ideas for making a European competitor to US services that are soon to be tariffed.

I reckon both Mastercard and Visa will give you really damn good proxies for cross border money flows.

I software and IT services (cloud) etc. "goods" or not here? As far as I know that very large sector is not included in that calculation. A follow up question is how US company subsidiaries located in Europe are counted - the gains all end up in the US eventually (or at the very least the money streams are under US control), but it does not count as a US export? I have sooo many questions.

Everything is Microsoft and Co. in Europe and elsewhere, both the OS and things like AWS or Office 365 subscriptions.

It's made me reconsider visiting. ATM, if I do go, I'll most likely go via Ireland where most of the border checks are done before getting on the plane rather than when getting to the states.

However, the article you linked to states its not an offical travel warning, more like an advisory.

> But they also stressed that this change does not count as an official travel warning

The Ireland tip is a great shout. My brother-in-law holds passports for the UK and another country that is not on the USA's christmas card list, he does all his US business flying via Ireland.