system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do US Businesses like Apple affect the trade balance when its products are produced abroad?
gpt
Trade deficits are about as useful to characterize a nation's economic well-being as it is trying to determine a person's identity from a shadow.  It only provides the broad outline.  A massive trade deficit can be the result of over-consumption and/or under-production rather than purely antagonistic practices.  If the latter were true, why would we (the US) ever enter into such an agreement in the first place?  Consider the following:

1. Over-consumption.  The reality is, much of the trade imbalance comes from the fact that the US has the highest gross consumption of products anywhere in the world and has the 2nd highest per capita expense (after the UAE, IIRC).  It should be no surprise that the world's largest (in terms of gross size) market has a trade imbalance.  For comparison, the average American saves less than 3% of their total income, compared to a country like China where the average savings rate is over 30%.  Other countries are financing American spending by providing low cost of goods to meet our demands.  **Example:** The average American has more than two cars and at least one firearm (per capita basis).  In order to be able to buy and own these products at these rates, products from other countries have to flow in to meet the demand.  Not everyone drives a Mustang and a F-150 with a AR-15 on the bed. 

2. Under-production.  A mature, service-based economy such as the US greatly under-produces compared to a quickly developing one such as India or China.  It is simply the nature of business in the service industry.  Also, high tech sectors often have to use high cost of goods to manufacture high tech products with decent quality.  The relative unprofitability of a manufacturing based industry is not as attractive to US companies when they can simply import those goods (having foreign firms compete for the contracts), assemble those goods, and sell the final products in various global markets within those markets themselves.  That way they can minimize expenditures on the raw materials while maximizing profits.  **Example:** Ford sources materials from around the world, taking bidders on all sorts of contracts.  Forcing those contracts to come from domestic sources via tariffs hurts the company in terms of their choice of suppliers and the increase in cost of goods.

3. High cost of domestic goods sold in foreign markets.  So what about the other side of the issue?  What about the export of American goods?  It works in reverse as well, something that few people pause to consider.  **Example:** Trump's claim that India has a 100% tariff on the US.  Not sure what this actually means, but in reality, the cost of goods that are produced in the US makes them extremely over-valued in developing markets where the cost of living is substantially lower.  Imagine a bottle of water produced in the US, why would you pay its full value in Rupees when you can get a cheaper form of it in India as an Indian?  Either the product just will not sell in India or the Indian government has to eat that cost by **not** levying a tariff.

4. The real answer is that companies, meaning the specific entities, simply do not care about trade balances.  They do not owe allegiance to any flag, they only are beholden to their stakeholders.  In reality, the trade imbalance can be explained in many ways.

Arguing that a trade imbalance somehow hurts a nation is widely misleading.  The small amount of domestic jobs a protectionist tariff could create often pales in comparison to the wider issue of over-consumption and under-production of marketable goods.  In reality, it only serves as the outline of trade relations between two nations.

TL;DR: Rich nations that like to buy a lot of things need other nations to make up for the demand, thereby often leading to trade imbalances.  Companies do not care, they are just out to make profits.