By Christopher Matthews @ Axios.com, 5 hrs. ago

Trade was a defining issue for candidate Donald Trump in 2016, when he lambasted American NAFTA negotiators for "the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere" and an unconscionable strike against U.S. manufacturing jobs. As president he upended the Trans-Pacific Partnership for similar reasons. His biggest data point, wielded like a cudgel: America's $500 billion annual trade deficit.

But the numbers are going against Trump so far: the U.S. trade deficit was $44 billion in August, for example, above the monthly average of $42 billion in 2016, Barack Obama's last full year in office. As you see in the chart below, the 2017 monthly average of $45.6 billion is far worse than any year of Obama's presidency apart from 2011, when the deficit was $45.7 billion.

Why it matters: Trump may come to regret using the trade deficit as an economic scorecard, because [....]