Outside views: New re-export calculations a 'trick' borrowed from Democrats

The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Trump administration officials have asked federal employees who calculate trade numbers to change how they do so – exaggerating trade deficits by not counting “re-exports.” For the Journal's editorial page, that's a “trick” used before by the “political left,” one that “ deserves to be hooted down as an attempt to manipulate statistics to assist bad economic policy.” What the paper's editorial page calls the “abuse” of re-export numbers was...