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In addition to needing to pay interest on IMF and World Bank loans, these countries need dollars for two things:

• buying oil, which can only be sold in US dollars. Trying to sell oil in other currencies is actually the primary reason the US destroyed Saddam's Iraq, as he tried to sell oil to Europe in exchange for euros, and Gaddafi's Libya (the details of which I can't remember off the top of my head). The 'petrodollar' was agreed with OPEC by Nixon in 1971 after the US had gone off the gold standard, essentially by the implication of the US's military prowess.

• buying food, because most of their food agriculture was destroyed during colonialism and replaced with cash crops, and since then the IMF has refused to issue a single loan that would enable food security - indeed, destroying the last vestiges of food crop production is usually a condition of IMF loans. Meanwhile, the US is one of the largest producers and exporters of grain in the world, and uses the threat of cutting off this supply to keep its subjects in line. In fact, they produce so much that giving away food for free as aid is another key tactic to destroy local agriculture, as the farmers can't sell in a market saturated with free grain and so go out of business. But if the local government tried to counter this by heavily subsidizing food production the way the US does, they would be refused IMF loans or even hit with sanctions that would starve them out before their food production could develop sufficiently.

This means that the US has a total stranglehold on almost every global south country, because at any time they can impose sanctions that will cut off food and fuel to that country. Without oil, modern economies grind to a halt, and without food - well, the results are obvious. So these countries need to export products to the US to get dollars.

They've got a large debt in USD and need a constant stream to service it. They probably got shackled with it trough the IMF and were also forced to painfully "restructure" their economies towards exports to the imperial core, which are now in jeopardy.

Literally just another way to say they make shit that the US buys from them which they use to pay off loans, and they take loans out to develop their industry to make more shit.

They're just trying to sound cleverer. It targets countries with large quantities of manufacturing because Trump wants that manufacturing to migrate to the US. That's really all there is to it.

If they can't sell their shit to the US they will have some problems, because who is it for if that's the case? What I think will happen however is that the Euro-Asia-Middle East-Africa become closer together from all of this, while the US ends up on the fringe. Geography is not on america's side except in the case of starting wars in these regions and being insulated from those wars.

And even the countries with low foreign currency debt, like India. India runs a large trade surplus against the US so it can import from China and Gulf states without destroying their exchange rate.

I think there are class dynamics within these countries which show up in trade. For example, rich people with lots of local currency can buy gold and luxury goods from abroad using the low exchange rate maintained by exploitation (which shows up in form of a trade surplus against US as well as exploitation in form of foreign investments ).

This is why when certain free traders say that India has net current/trade deficit because it's deficit with China and Gulf is greater than its surplus with the US/West made up using western capital inflows (foreign investments), it is kinda wrong. Not everyone benefits equally, for most the net benefit is negative even with a current/trade deficit.

But yea, if you look it from a narrow purely arithmetic lens, a trade deficit means a country is getting real goods and services while a trade surplus means a country is giving real goods and services. It hides certain things, for example if your country is importing in excess of exports while being continously indebted in foreign currencies, then that is not sustainable and there will inevitably be a sharp adjustment in the future, it also ignores distribution of the said trade deficit.

China is one of the larger countries which managed to exploit this to their advantage to make sure everyone benefitted somewhat, not just the top 10%

Super Imperialism in 84 seconds

One country defaulting is that country's problem. An entire continent of countries defaulting is AmeriKKKa's problem.