Economist Scott Sumner says on The Pursuit of Happiness that the American media sees trade deficits as bad and trade surpluses as good. But you can imagine the trade surplus as Americans working hard to produce goods and services that are then consumed by foreigners. And that does not mean very positively.� The economist then explains how the world of trade surpluses and deficits is changing, even in connection with the aging of the population, and what wide-ranging effects this would have.When I was young, the Japanese worked hard to make a lot of useful things that Americans like myself could then buy and wear. From the proceeds of these exports, the Japanese have accumulated a lot of foreign assets, including financial ones such as stocks and bonds, as well as foreign investments such as the Toyota factories in Kentucky.� But today, Japan has an aging population, and that means a change in consumption and the trade balance. How does this relate to how Americans will pay for their current and future trade deficits? Sumner says: «To many people, the idea of future trade surpluses for the United States seems improbable.'' We have had trade deficits for many decades now and nothing seems to ever change. So how can we be sure that our current trade deficit will turn into future trade surpluses? In fact, I'm not sure, it's quite possible that the US will never pay for its current trade deficits with future imports of goods and services. We may end up paying in some other way. But how? How else could we pay for all the goods that the country constantly sends us? The economist sees four basic possibilities: First, through the profits made by American multinational companies. Second, through the «import'' property. For t�tet�, through the importation of people (immigration). And for a quarter, there is an implicit unpaid debt due to high inflation. To the first point, Sumner adds: «The American corporate sector increasingly dominates the global economy. So it seems possible that our corporate sector could earn enough profits from foreign trade to finance our trade deficit. To the second point: When a foreign entrepreneur sells goods to the US, they are paid in dollars. He could decide to take those dollars and buy some real estate in the US, like a big house in Orange County. In such a case, we could say that we have «delivered'' the house. But it's not officially considered an export because the land never actually leaves the US. But when Japanese tourists visit Disneyland, their income is considered an export of services, even if the service is provided in the US. The economist comments on this possibility as follows: «Alternatively, the foreign owner of a company holding US dollars and bonds could immigrate to America and take his debts with him in dollars. In such a case, the US government would still have a debt owed to its bondholders, but it would not be a foreign debt. It is already an obligation to pay money to someone who is now an American citizen. And fourth, the American government could reduce inflation by means of an expansionary monetary policy for a large part of its debt. In such a case, the national bonds collected by foreign exporters would have a decreasing real value. Sumner adds that these possibilities exist, but there is also another possibility, and that is a real turn in the US trade balance. Many people can only imagine that the US could eventually start showing trade surpluses. However, Japan's decline and the development of the trade balance indicate that we should not rule out the possibility that our trade balance may indeed reverse in the future. This happened in the case of Japan. I wouldn't be surprised if this happened in the US, but of course in the opposite direction – from a trade deficit to a trade surplus.