No, that’s not how this works. Unless you want to shift production from things we’re good at making to things we’re bad at making and therefore lead to a decline in incomes. Which is of course the current strategy.
GDP = C + I + G + (X - M)
No, that’s not good. Despite the fever dream of some Trump supporters we don’t live in a closed economy.
Yes, that’s the math. Do you think Y would be larger if we did away entirely with M?
Exactly. which is why Bloomberg (those raving frothing Trump-supporters) felt it necessary to highlight the change in imports
if imports had remained unchanged
what would growth have been?
You know like what was the US change in GDP?
is the US making more stuff?
consuming more stuff?
“Net exports subtracted nearly 5 percentage points from GDP, the most on record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis report showed.”
No (but you knew I don’t think that way.)
That would also be far more radical than anything I have suggested (but you knew that too,)
…but, but…but…consumer confidence is going down in spite of this positive reality. 
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Current economy:
Borrow money form China.
Use it to buy Chinese stuff.
Borrow more money from China
Use it to buy more Chinese stuff.
Measure the amount of stuff we buy and call it a success.
cause you know consumption = the economy, right?
(Hey it works in the paper models)
.
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Heritage guy (conservative, honest) says when you adjust for the import surge, this was a good report
Brookings guy (liberal, honest) reposts that when you adjust for the surge in imports this was a good report.
.
.
.
Gee I post the same analysis
but ya know,
only drooling uneducated MAGA types would spin things that way. 
which is why the stock market is down.
good report. lol
Allan
Then:
I thought the economy is weak and I said it, and at least some major mainstream economists on both sides of the aisle concur with me.
(Gaius and A and B all said the same thing.)
Now:
I think the economy is weak and I say it, and at least some major mainstream economists on both sides of the aisle concur with me.
(Gaius and A and B all say the same thing)
Also Now:
I believe that
growing production, growing employment and growing consumption, are NOT sigs of a weakening economy even if people stockpiled a bunch of imports and . . . . . at least some major mainstream economists on both sides of the aisle concur with me.
(Gaius and A and B all said the same thing.)
.
.
.
.
VS political types with no interest in the economy will jump back and forth depending who is president calling the same thing good or bad.
(Which is not immoral, they just should not feel doing that makes them intelligent.)
There is no way to report a decline in production as a positive story. The surge in imports that reduced GDP are due to economic policy of the President
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It’s not a decline in production
It is an increase in imports/
Here is the same provided by BEA without the imports.
It totals 5% growth, probably the strongest growth in a very long time.
To get the full picture we, of course, must also subtract imports,
The very same thing Donald Trump s trying to reduce.
(It would be crazy to oppose those efforts, wouldn’t it?)
why is the POTUS trying to reduce imports?
what has happened in history when a similar thing occurred?.
Allan
The surge in imports was the direct result of economic policy of the President. I’m not sure how that’s not obvious.
The tariffs are the reason for the surge in imports.
You think it is not obvious?
I think it is obvious.
I think it is also obvious that Trumps import-reducing tariffs will reduce imports.,
and equally obvious that the temporary one time surge in imports was a temporary one-time thing.
Why would you pretend you are not aware of that?
I think it is very obvious that we had a surge of imports due to the policies of the president - I think my earlier language was less than clear on that. I should have said “it’s obvious to anyone that the increase in imports is due to tariffs policy”
What is perhaps a tad less obvious is that reducing imports makes Americans worse off and will make Americans worse off in the quarter that follows.
