What is the difference between trade deficit and current account deficit? I read this article and still don't understand the difference. "Spends more money on what it imports compared to the money it receives for what it exports" (how it defines current account deficit). "There is more being bought by the country than there is being sold" (how it defines trade deficit). Isn't this the same thing described by different words?
They are very related concepts but they are not completely same.

Current account deficit occurs when country spends more on imports than it receives in imports.

Trade deficit means that more imports are being sold than exports by a country.

A trade deficit is also a part of current account deficit as current account can be decomposed as:

$$CA=X-M+NI+NT$$

Where $X-M$ is the trade balance and and if $X-M&lt;0$ we say country has a trade deficit, but as you can see the current account also includes net income which is income of country’s resident minus income paid to foreigners and NT is net transfers which includes things like foreign aid and remittances. A current account deficit occurs when $X-M+NI+NT&lt;0$.

So although they are related and trade deficit is usually a big component of current account deficit they are definitely not same. It’s even possible for country to have current account surplus while having trade deficit.