Another smart man, Warren Buffet, has proposed a way to bring US trade into balance. Exporters would be awarded import certificates in the dollar value of their exports. The certificates would be sold in a market to importers, who could import goods in the dollar amount of the certificates. This way imports cannot exceed exports. Moreover, as the certificates would be profit to exporters, it encourages more exports. Free trade theory never intended for economies to be in permanent trade disequilibrium. The US experience of a worsening disequilibrium over a quarter century is outside the bounds of trade theory.