system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why politicians hate imports and love exports

Whenever a politician talks about a free trade agreement, they only talk about how it's going to create jobs back home and never about how it's going to decrease tariffs on imports. Are imports bad for a country's economy? The way they talk about international commerce, it's like the exporting country benefits at the expense of the importing country. Since both countries are relatively equal in influence, it's not like one country is using imperialism on the other.
gpt
Imports are things that could be made domestically but aren't.

Exports are things your country makes but other countries don't. 

Therefore, imports cost your country money and exports make your country money.


This is a massively oversimplified explanation, but it does it to explain the gist.

In reality, exports and imports are both absolutely required to run a modern economy.  The proportion depends pretty heavily.