Alongside his promise of 25 million jobs, Trump has also said he can get America growing at 4% a year again. That would be almost double what Obama achieved. The U.S. hasn't seen consistent 4% economic growth since the tech boom of the late 1990s.
Of course they matter. Trade deficits arise when we import more than we export. Easy said. It's a tad bit more complicated. When we keep incurring these deficits, year after year, we use our domestic currency (the $) to pay for those imports. This results in our trade partners getting a considerable supply of those $.
The U.S. consistently runs a trade deficit, mainly due to the dependence on foreign oil to meet its energy needs and high domestic demand for consumer goods produced abroad. In 2013, the United States recorded a USD 702 billion deficit in trade of goods, including a USD 232 billion deficit in petroleum products. Meanwhile, the U.S. had a USD 231 billion surplus in trade of services. The main trading partners of the U.S. are Canada, China, Mexico and Japan.