I think they're focused on when you import more than you export, that's a net loss, or a trade deficit.

One way to view it is that you are propping up someone else's economy, or you are funneling your money outside.

So I think nationalistic morons just hate that at face value without any critical thinking.

In some formulas this is included in GDP, and growing up in rural America, I always heard whining about how America needed to stay on top and not be beaten by China or whoever else, and a lot of that rhetoric sometimes simply stems from made up crap like who has the bigger number, such as GDP. I can tell you how often I've heard idiotic ideas like how some other country like China will just invade and take us over if we aren't #1 in everything. Like being #2 or 3 somehow means death.

I usually waste my time trying to point out the sun now sets on the British flag every damn day, and yet they still have their country and they still live pretty decent lives. The British didn't just disappear once their empire was basically over.

Conservatism and nationalism is toxic.