You raise an excellent point that US corporate tax evasion is exaggerating the trade deficit. However, from the perspective of winning US elections, I think it does not change the issue that the trade deficit falls more on de-industrializing Midwestern states, and the corporations you are referring to are concentrated in Northeastern and Western states.

Secondly, if Microsoft or Apple makes the profit appear in Ireland, it cannot move that money back to the domestic US, right? So as long as the money sits overseas, it would not count towards US trade and thus the deficit calculation is fair.