Topic: CNSNews.com
One of CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey's anti-Biden tactics has been to blame him for trade deficits with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine -- even though it's impossible for one large country to immediately stop all trade with another country -- and burying the good news that trade with Russia sharply declined after the invasion. AFter months away from that beat, Jeffrey has returned to it, writing in a Feb. 20 article:
The United States ran a merchandise trade deficit of $12,742,700,000 with Russia in 2022, making 2022 the 29th straight year that the United States has run a trade deficit with that nation, according to data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The last time the United States ran a trade surplus with Russia was in 1993. In 1994, and every year since then, according to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has run a trade deficit with Russia.
During 2022, the United States imported approximately $14,457,800,000 in goods from Russia and exported $1,715,100,000, according to the bureau. That resulted in a bilateral trade deficit of $12,742,700,000.
Immediately following those paragraphs, however, was a graph showing not only that the 2022 trade deficit was less than half of what it was in 2021 but it was also the lowest deficit since 2016. And later in the article there was another graph showing that the monthly trade deficits shrank after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia in March. But at no point did Jeffrey explicitly state any of this in his article; he noted the sanctions but complained that the deficits persisted (yet gave no credit for their decline).
Jeffrey served up similar dishonesty in a March 8 article:
This January, eleven months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States bought $508,600,000 in Russian imports, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States imposed trade restrictions on Russia.
This time, though, Jeffrey eventually admitted that the deficits are much smaller than they were before sanctions -- but not until the sixth paragraph of his article:
While importing $508,600,000 in goods from Russia in January, the United States exported only $44,600,000 to that country. The result was a January bilateral trade deficit with Russia of $464,000,000.
That was significantly less than the January 2022 trade deficit with Russia, when the United States imported $1,959,400,000 in goods from Russian and exported $396,800,000 in goods to Russia, resulting in a bilateral trade deficit of $1,562,500,000 for that month.
By the way, Jeffrey's insistence on writing out the entire number -- presumably for the partisann purpose of making them look huge and, thus, make Biden look fiscally irresponsible -- violates Associated Press style for writing out numbers that big. Putting partisan agendas before stylistic consistency with other, more credible news organizations, makes CNS look bad. He has offered no public explanation on why he's intentionally deviating from standard media style.
