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Returning to a gold standard would reduce the US trade deficit.

A trade deficit is when the country is buying more goods and services (imports) than it sells (exports), creating the need for foreign financing that must be repaid when the deficit turns into a surplus (when the country is exporting more than it is importing). [121]

Our current fiat money system allows the Federal Reserve to finance large trade deficits by printing money. [22] Since abandoning the gold standard in 1971, the United States has had the highest trade deficits the world has ever seen – reaching a high of $758 billion in 2006. [122]

As of May 2020, $6.78 trillion of American national debt is owned by foreign creditors. Japan holds the most at $1.26 trillion, followed by China ($1.08 trillion), the United Kingdom ($394 billion), and Luxembourg (262.7 billion), among other countries. US debt held by foreign creditors amounts to about a third of all US debt. [123]

Japan and China want the value of the US dollar to be higher than their own currencies. But, as Ron Paul, MD, former US Representative (R-TX) noted, “debt of this sort always ends by the currency of the debtor nation decreasing in value. And that’s what has started to happen with the dollar, although it still has a long way to go. Our free lunch cannot last. Printing money, buying foreign products, and selling foreign holders of dollars our debt ends when the foreign holders of this debt become concerned with the dollar’s future value.” [12] [123]

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