The US trade deficit jumped almost 5% in February to $57.3 billion, another notable reading exactly one year after Trump declared trade deficits his top priority on “Liberation Day.”
The new data captures some of the chaos felt by global shippers that month, when the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s blanket tariffs in a landmark ruling.
The closely watched figure increased from $54.5 billion in January, according to new data released Thursday by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The US trade deficit remains roughly the same today as it was on April 2, 2025, when Trump delivered his “Liberation Day” address and signed an executive order that name-checked the trade deficit in its title.
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The trade deficit has been volatile throughout Trump’s second term, including a spike in the early months as importers stocked up.
The data showed a deficit of $60.1 billion in April 2025. The new three-month moving average of the trade deficit ending in February was largely unchanged at $61.6 billion.
The increase in February’s deficit was a result of import increases, which jumped by 4.3% to $372.1 billion. That outpaced gains in exports, which increased by a smaller 4.2% to $314.8 billion.
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The change was also largely driven by an increase in the “goods deficit,” which jumped by $2.5 billion.
“These moves were driven in large part by shipments of particular volatile items,” Capital Economics noted in an analysis of the number, noting that the “rise in imports can be attributed to imports of computers and accessories amid the AI buildout.”
The US traditionally runs a surplus on the services side of the ledger — that continued but declined by $0.2 billion to $27.3 billion.
Thursday’s data also included a country-by-country breakdown and showed continued multibillion-dollar trade deficits with many nations, including Mexico ($16.8 billion), Vietnam ($16.5 billion), China ($13.1 billion), and others.
The new data is just the latest zigzag in trade deficits during Trump’s second term, as importers have responded to shifting tariff announcements with dramatic changes in their orders.
Yet the overall effect on trade deficits, a metric the president has been focused on for decades and has often said is a main reason for implementing the tariffs, remains far from clear.
The total trade deficit for all of 2025 was $901.5 billion. The total for 2024, the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency, was $903.5 billion.