They claim that the country’s overall trade deficit — the sum of the U.S. trade balance with all countries — represents economic weakness and a national-security threat. But what can bilateral trade deficits and the country’s overall trade deficit tell us about trading relations and the health of the U.S. economy? Here are some facts:

On Thursday, Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs against U.S. trading partners that will go into effect next week. The announcement came on the same day that an appeals court grappled with the question of whether Trump’s tariffs are even legal.