I definitely made a mistake
I was reaching for Lester Thurow's remark, ...the epitaph of the Reagan presidency will be: 'When Ronald Reagan became President, the United States was the largest creditor nation. When he left the presidency, we were the world's largest debtor nation.' Which is true. But we were already on the path from creditor to debtor in 1980. A fact that I got wrong.
As for the explosion in the trade deficit under Clinton, you'll note that I did mention that Reagan's excesses have been topped since. That would be an example.
Cheers,
Ben
Update: I've been searching for when we went to having a trade deficit. Apparently it happened in 1971 under Nixon. I don't know if we went back positive during the 70's though, we might well have.
