The European Union has consistently enjoyed hefty trade surpluses with the United States.  According to the United States Census Bureau, for the past four years, those surpluses were $168, $151, $147, and $156 billion, respectively.  For the first six months of 2019, the E.U. ran a near $100-billion surplus.  And this is before the European Central Bank's devaluation of the euro via negative interest rates and more quantitative easing. In a world where the U.S. economic establishment proclaims "free trade" as the cause of American prosperity, this is an anomaly.  If anything, under "free trade," it is the U.S. that should run multi-billion-dollar surpluses with Europe.  That's because America is the source of innovations and the development of cutting-edge technologies, not Europe.  Add to that the fact that European industries are grossly inefficient by U.S. standards...(Read Full Post)