Brad Setser ✓
@Brad_Setser · joined 20 May 2016
CFR senior fellow. Views are my own. Writes on sovereign debt, trade, fx reserves and capital flows.
157 405Followers
1 072Following
90 479Posts total
303.5KViews on collected posts
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A lot of big US companies ....
Don't pay much tax in the United States.
Several reporting paying more abroad than to the U.S. Treasury.
A new blog with @Mike_Weilandt
https://t.co/d7538CZTNq
7.4K views · 42 likes
· 6 reposts · 6 replies
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Korea's current account surplus running at close to $500b annual rate. Trailing 12m sum is close to $300b and still heading up
1/3 https://t.co/Pq9LLoKEae
11K views · 58 likes
· 5 reposts · 8 replies
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Important to understand what is in the manufacturing data --
last spring the deficit was inflated by pharma front running. not de stockpiling is reducing pharma imports
and my trailing 3m sum of manufactures suggests the deficit is rising again (on AI demand) https://t.co/z2
6.8K views · 11 likes
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🛑🇰🇷 South Korea July current account (not seasonally adjusted) USD 42.08 bln, prior USD 49.7304 bln.
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Much interesting data below. But despite the AI-related import boom & early tariff front-running he IDs, ytd the total US trade deficit & the goods deficit are below 2024 (Biden pre-Trump 2.0 tariff) levels. And manufacturing's is down 7.09% this year y/y ytd. That's failure?
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And for those interested, here are the latest simple (tariffs collected/ imports) effective tariff rates for various major trading partners. This is before the latest tit for tat with Canada
11/11 https://t.co/NgRiSN5IX6
2.9K views · 14 likes
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And the boom in electronics imports is so big that it is pulling in imports from China too (doesn't hurt that tariffs were down to 10% for goods not on the legacy 301 lists). Total imports from Asia are now massive
10/ https://t.co/g6mGkzaoju
3.2K views · 18 likes
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@Brad_Setser @Brad_Setser The July release makes the case broader. The deficit widened 24.4% as imports rose 2.8% and exports fell 2.1%. Both sides of the ledger moved against compression, though the headline balance cannot separate resilient demand from tariff front-running.
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If Trump's second term trade policy was really driven by his old belief that a bilateral deficit was a symbol of losing, we would be fighting a trade war with Mexico right now -- and not one with Canada ...
9/ https://t.co/DJbveih3io
2.3K views · 18 likes
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This shows up in the bilateral numbers too, if you know where to look -- imports from ASEAN and Vietnam are way up. WAY UP. So are imports from Mexico (that is computers not cars ... ). While imports from the EU (pharma) are down
8/ https://t.co/PM4bH9KbkF
1.6K views · 13 likes
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Capital goods imports (basically all computers, other categories are weak) are up $600b since the end of 24 -- about 2 pp of GDP (trailing 3m sums annualized)
That is to be expected if a country with a 6 pp of GDP budget deficit has a debt financed investment boom ...
7/
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And there is no secret as to why -- the US is importing a ton of expensive computers (with very expensive Korean/ Taiwanese chips) to kit out a lot of data centers.
Other import categories actually remain quite weak
6/ https://t.co/ylbDNW3niO
1.8K views · 18 likes
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July of course jumps out, but the trailing 3m sums show import growth far exceeding export growth ...
5/ https://t.co/Kh1M07B0pP
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And it stems in part from the fact that the gold distortion that held down the deficit earlier in 2026 has faded (pharma imports tho are still quite low, more on that later)
4/ https://t.co/Kk3Bmqc4CL
1.8K views · 18 likes
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I don't think the big deficit in July in an outlier, it is a continuation of the trend that started in May ...
3/ https://t.co/lmosEarzq4
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In Trumpian terms, we are losing like we have never lost before - so much losing in fact. 100s of billions of dollars are flowing out of the United States
(in other words, a record trade deficit outside the period of tariff front running; sign reversed in the chart)
2/ https:
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In the battle between standard macroeconomics and the Trump administration, standard macroeconomics is winning. The US trade deficit exploded in July, on the back of surging US imports ...
1/ https://t.co/yXirKCBSTb
15.5K views · 139 likes
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@Brad_Setser The BOK release credits banks' FX deposits at the central bank. That's a borrowed line, not owned reserves - it can walk. The stock rose $14.33bn to $442.28bn, a four-year high but still $27bn under the Oct 2021 peak, and short of the $20bn flow.
516 views · 2 likes
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Great scoop from Reuters
h/t @Richard_Casey
2/2
https://t.co/LqZOAciD8i
3.7K views · 26 likes
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Well, we now know why Korea's reserves jumped in August! $20b of the Hynix US listing was bought by Korea's government ...
1/2 https://t.co/Cj7OFmg57W
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@Brad_Setser Setser is not an economist, he has become kind of China hater to the level of his colleague Rush Doshi. Setser has only bad words for China. China is bad/wrong everywhere. He criticized China’s EVs but not Biden IRA. He is a racist thinking China is condemned to low
5.1K views · 60 likes
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@Brad_Setser great listen, rare to hear somebody who’s got economic knowledge and country specific insight beyond platitudes. my only complaint is that i didn’t connect you with the podcast setser because of your youthful profile picture. perhaps time for an update?
7.9K views · 11 likes
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I discussed the second China shock with Ezra Klein of the New York Times
https://t.co/JGAme9AhC9
186.9K views · 688 likes
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Against accounts of the same size
24 posts from the last 90 days, next to the 100K–1M follower range. shown to more people than peers of the same size.
Median views3 433this account5 983median for 100K–1M
Reach, %2.18%this account1.49%median for 100K–1M
Engagement, %0.77%this account0.93%median for 100K–1M
| Metric | This account | Median for 100K–1M | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median views per post | 3 433 | 5 983 | 0.57× |
| Reach (views ÷ followers) | 2.18% | 1.49% | 1.46× |
| Engagement rate | 0.77% | 0.93% | 0.83× |
Others in this range → Compare with another account → How these benchmarks are built →
Growth & engagement
How the posts we collected actually performed: views and reaction rate post by post, what the audience did with them, and where the follower count goes.
Views per post
1.8K3 Sep
1.7K
1.8K
1.6K
1.6K
2.3K
618
3.2K
2.9K
5.9K
11.9K
6.8K
11K4 Sep
7.4K
Last 14 collected posts, oldest on the left. The scale is logarithmic: one post can outrun the rest a hundred times over.
Engagement rate per post
1.19%3 Sep
0.80%
1.19%
0.81%
0.93%
1.03%
0.16%
0.69%
0.53%
0.05%
0.02%
0.22%
0.66%4 Sep
0.73%
Reactions — likes, reposts, replies and quotes — divided by views. Median for 100K–1M accounts is 0.93%.
What the audience does
Likes60.0%1 353 in total
Reposts9.0%203 in total
Replies3.2%73 in total
Quotes2.0%44 in total
Bookmarks25.8%582 in total
Share of every reaction we collected for this account. Replies mean argument, reposts mean endorsement, bookmarks mean the post was worth keeping.
The follower curve appears once this account has two daily snapshots — we take one a day, and this one is on its first.
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