I wonder how much of the trade imbalance in the US is due to US multinationals efforts to "minimize their tax obligations" (i.e. hide their profits from the taxman) as they use advantageous transfer pricing to stash their international earnings. It strikes me that they are very good at that and that the US complaints about the unfairness they see in trade is in fact at least partly due to the ambitious efforts of many of said companies to save their cake while eating it at the same time. Perhaps the  US should be dealing with the ethically questionable antics of their own companies instead of compounding the effects of their tax dodges on countries where they have set up shop. Of course they are laughing all the way to the bank, just like you know who when he got to write off $800 M of Other Peoples Money that he had  lost and thereby effectively turned it into $1.6B.