Posted on 08/05/2025 9:07:59 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Summary
Aug 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in June on a sharp drop in consumer goods imports, and the trade gap with China shrank to its lowest in more than 21 years, the latest evidence of the imprint on global commerce President Donald Trump is making with sweeping tariffs on imported goods.
The overall trade gap narrowed 16.0% in June to $60.2 billion, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Tuesday. Days after reporting that the goods trade deficit tumbled 10.8% to its lowest since September 2023, the government said the full deficit including services also was its narrowest since then.
Exports of goods and services totaled $277.3 billion, down from more than $278 billion in May, while total imports were $337.5 billion, down from $350.3 billion.
The diminished trade deficit contributed heavily to the rebound in U.S. gross domestic product during the second quarter, reported last week, reversing a drag in the first quarter when imports had surged as consumers and businesses front-loaded purchases to beat the imposition of Trump's tariffs. The economy in the second quarter expanded at a 3.0% annualized rate after contracting at a 0.5% rate in the first three months of the year, but the headline figure masked underlying indications that activity was weakening.
Last week Trump, ahead of a self-imposed deadline of August 1, issued a barrage of notices informing scores of trading partners of higher import taxes set to be imposed on their goods exports to the U.S.
With tariff rates ranging from 10% to 41% on imports to the U.S. set to kick in...
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
China misses having a paid for president like Biden.
For the last 40 years, the West has basically been assisting the CCP in its maintenance of power and development of its strategic power, by soaking up all the excess labor and production capacity which are the bizarre consequences of CCPs development policy.
Do western consumers (and Wall Street financial engineers) benefit by excessively cheap products? Yes
but does the West also allow the CCP to throw money at development of strategic industries and military R&D? Yes.
Does it cause those industries in the USA to fail or relocated. Also Yes.
They are measuring deficit in dollars.
Clearly it would be hard to measure in units, since the units of things imported are not units of things exported. We export bytes of Hollywood movies. We import plastic things from China.
But . . . if the measurement is in dollars, and the dollar has fallen against other currencies this year, then we’re not really measuring a change in trade deficit. We’re measuring both change in trade AND change in dollar vs other currencies.
DXY index is down about 10% since January. Trade deficit down 16% in June. That’s good, but it’s not a pure measure. It’s really only 6%.
America could have a trade surplus in a few months.
Yes, we need to.
US used to be the machine of world production.
Everywhere, you could buy Made in USA products.
Now, we cannot buy them even here!
Hopefully tariffs will encourage more domestic manufacturing.
Excellent Job Trump!!!
More winning!!!
We imported 13 $billion less annd our exports dropped less than 1 billion. This is definitely winning!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.