The trade accounts are among the most pernicious statistics ever collected. It’s long been remarked, for example, that merely by calling something a “deficit” it seems bad even though a current account deficit is matched by a financial account surplus. Put that issue aside, however, because the real problems are much deeper. The international accounts make it appear that individuals, in their ordinary buying and selling, bind us all in a collective endeavor. The accounts take millions of voluntary, mutually beneficial transactions between individuals and firms and repackage them as a relationship between nations—as if “America” were buying from “China” the way Ford buys from a supplier. Many, many experts get this wrong—not just non-economists who are misled by terms like “deficits.” Don Boudreaux gives a truly excellent example in replying to a reader who asks: The USA ran trade deficits for 50 years. Those were offset by foreigners’ investments in the USA. Foreigners expect returns on these investments.…