The US trade deficit jumped by almost 33% in December, rising for the second month in a row to $70.3 billion.
Trade deficits were volatile throughout 2025 as importers responded to President Trump’s shifting tariff announcements, which have upended the global landscape but haven’t significantly dented the US trade deficit, at least so far.
The data released Thursday by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis also provided an annual tally for 2025, totaling trade in both goods and services at $901.5 billion. The total for 2024, the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency, was $903.5 billion.
The new reading came just hours after Trump claimed that trade deficits were already down and offered a bold prediction for 2026 that the trade deficit would “go into positive territory during this year, for the first time in many decades.”
The full effect of tariffs on the trade deficit remains uncertain after the trade gap surged early in 2025 as US companies stocked up on foreign goods ahead of the new duties taking effect. The deficit was lower in some months of 2025 before the increases seen over the past three months.
Large swings in things like gold trading and digital equipment contributed to much of the recent monthly changes. Imports of telecommunications equipment, for example, increased by $1.3 billion.
“The usual suspects were behind the widening in the trade deficit at the end of last year: gold, pharmaceuticals and IT equipment,” Capital Economics offered in an analysis, adding that the reading leaves their fourth quarter GDP growth estimated unchanged at 3.4% annualized.
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The new monthly reading, delayed by the recent government shutdown, was the second consecutive increase following October’s trade deficit of just under $30 billion — the lowest figure seen since 2009, which Trump and his aides often touted.
The new December reading saw US imports fall by about $5 billion to $287.3 billion, while imports jumped by $12.3 billion to $357.6 billion. Goods imported in 2025 rose overall, despite Trump’s tariffs, to a total of about $3.4 trillion last year.
Goods exported to Canada were at their lowest level since 2022 following months of trade tensions. The trade deficit with China fell in 2025, with a $202.1 billion reading last year versus $295.5 billion in 2024.
But the declining trade with China was made up elsewhere, with trade deficits increasing with other Asian nations like Vietnam, as well as with Mexico.
The new data comes amid another week in Washington marked by significant tariff back-and-forth. On Wednesday, the White House disputed a finding from the New York Federal Reserve that 94% of tariff costs were borne by the US in the first eight months of 2025.