Politician: Every regulation currently being proposed by the Committee for Overseas Trade will reduce the trade defic...

Annie on November 24, 2019

Hi @Lucie,

This question is asking you to find the flaw in the argument. The best place to start with this type of question is by breaking down the argument into its component parts:

Premise: All currently proposed regulations by the Committee will reduce the trade deficit.
Premise: Our trade deficit is so big that it weakens the economy.
Conclusion: Each proposed regulation will help the economy.

Then, think if you can spot a weakness in the argument before turning to the answer choices. One that I spot is that we don't know what other effects these regulations may have. For instance, while they may reduce the deficit they could also increase unemployment. Would that help the economy? We don't know.

Turning to the answer choices:
(A) is incorrect. The politician does not discuss whether the trade deficit is increasing, but rather where it is currently.

(B) is incorrect. This is too strong of a statement to be correct. The politician never says that the "only" path is to reduce the trade deficit.

(C) is incorrect. The politician does not talk about the committee's authority.

(D) is correct. This answer choice describes the flaw we found above. This argument fails to take into account the possibility that there may be negative affects of the proposed regulations too.

(E) is incorrect. The politician does not talk about all of the regulations as a whole