There are other ways to organize U.S. international trade. The neoliberal free trade of recent decades and the trade restrictions of Trumpian tariffs are not the only options.
As of today, the U.S. government’s current deficit and debt are indeed currently at unprecedented levels for peacetime—once we account for them appropriately.
Peter Wagner is executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative [http://www.prisonpolicy.org]. Susan Edwards is a government documents librarian at Amherst College. Together they are writing a book