BLAME CANADA...AND EUROPE, AND JAPAN, AND...

U.S. trade deficits at record levels:

JOHN SNOW, the US Treasury Secretary, last night renewed demands for Europe and Japan to boost growth to ease global economic imbalances after America’s trade gap surged to a monthly record of $60 billion (£32 billion) in November.

A slump in US exports, blamed on weak demand in key trading partners, combined with a sharp rise in America’s oil imports to trigger the surprise jump in the trade deficit. Wall Street analysts had expected it to decline to $54 billion.
...
Analysts said that the November data left the US firmly on course to register a record trade gap for the year, with the deficit in the fourth quarter set to climb above 6 per cent of GDP for the first time, after a figure of 5.6 per cent in the previous three months.

The US trade shortfall for the first 11 months of last year already totals $561.3 billion — well above the record $496.5 billion set for 2003 as a whole.

This is the Bush Standard Operating Procedure: Nothing is ever our fault, and if you think it is (or especially, SAY it is) then you're an America-hating leftist loonie. And you should be run out of the country -- preferably to an Arab nation where you can hobnob with all your terrorist buddies until we blow up your village, and you with it.

And how DARE those slacker Japanese and Eurotrash not grow their economies as fast as we do? If they'd just follow our example and change methods of accounting, we'd all look a lot better. It must be a plot. They're refusing to grow just to spite us. Because they hate Bush.

UPDATE: For a more serious, insightful exploration of Snow's comments, see Blogging Of the President