Have you heard the news? Our trade deficit declined this year, after five years of record setting totals. Overall, our trade deficit with all foreign countries dropped 6.2%! Awesome right? Not so much. Our deficit with China alone rose 10.2 percent.

Despite a soaring foreign oil bill and another record deficit with China, the overall U.S. trade deficit declined in 2007 after setting records for five consecutive years.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the deficit dropped to $711.6 billion last year, a decline of 6.2 percent. The trade deficit with China continued to rise, jumping by 10.2 percent to $256.3 billion. That was the largest gap ever recorded with a single country, as Chinese imports surged despite a string of high-profile recalls of tainted products.

The Bush administration credited its free trade policies for spurring strong growth in exports while critics contended that even with the lower overall deficit, the imbalance is still nearly double what it was in 2001, the year Bush took office.

All this means to me is that we aren’t buying as much stuff from all the other countries in the world and we’re buying more shit from China. Wonderful.

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