Garth Groff wrote

What does concern me is our general trade deficit ....

Garth, two words: Energy Conservation.

A major push to bring down the cost of LED lightbulbs would yield
gigantic energy benefits. Did you know that barely 5% of the BTU's
represented by fuel burned for electric power are actually useable?
The rest is lost in fuel extraction, processing, transportation,
generation, waste recovery, and power transmission.

Coal is of course carried in steam era hopper cars...

Tim O.