Since taking office on Jan. 20, U.S. President Donald Trump has put shrinking the U.S. trade deficit at the top of his economic agenda. After he doled out criticism to countries with which the United States holds the largest trade deficits and threatened to slap punitive tariffs on their exports, Washington's trade partners have scrambled to come up with strategies to address the new administration's concerns. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has already sat down with Trump to defend his country's policies, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn't far behind. She will head to the United States on March 14 to meet with Trump for the first time, a day before German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will hold talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Germany.