Jay Bryson Financing Quotations

Sooner or later, foreigners will stop financing the deficit. But at this point they show no signs of slowing down. If there were trade barriers that caused Americans to buy significantly less imports, production here would go up a little, but the thing that would take the brunt of the reduction is that our spending would go down as prices went up. We would have less of everything.

If there is an 'issue' with the US external accounts, it is not the bilateral trade deficit with China but rather the overall deficit that the US incurs. After all, the large current account deficit means that the US spends more than it produces, which requires financing from abroad.