(AP) The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the gap between what America sells overseas and what it imports rose by 4.4 percent to $68.9 billion, surpassing the old record of $66 billion set in September.

America, the world’s leader in economics, imports more from China than they import from us.

"Month after month, we see new record trade deficits that spell real trouble for the United States," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "Behind these deficits are massive numbers of American jobs lost to foreign countries."

Critics said the administration's strategy of pursuing free trade deals with individual countries and negotiating a new global trade agreement under the auspices of the World Trade Organization was not working.

"We just don't see how current U.S. strategy is going to reverse these very dangerous trends," said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents mainly small U.S. manufacturing companies.

Well, I honestly don’t know how to fix this (I’m no economist), but I do know that the poster Republicans carry around all the time declares their support for protecting our economy from “dirty liberal tricks”…

I would think that same mentality should extend to foreign trade…. What’s that oath again? “Defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

Bush needs to remember that companies making a lot of money from exported cheap labor does not make a solid economy.