World’s largest economy has bigger shortfalls with China, the EU and Mexico, despite its president’s efforts to curtail imports
The skyrocketing US trade deficit in 2018 hit the highest level in a decade, a resounding failure for President Donald Trump’s global trade offensive, government data showed on Wednesday.
Trump has angrily described trade deficits as a defeat for the US , and aimed to erase them, but the commerce department report was bristling with records as Americans snapped up mobile phones and companies invested in computer equipment in 2018.Meanwhile, the overall trade deficit with the world, with services factored in, jumped 12.5% to $621bn as both imports and exports rose to their highest levels ever, according to the report. The deficit in 2017 was $552.3bn.
“In particular, economic weakness in China and Europe and trade-related uncertainties are dampening trade volumes.” But soybean exports, a crucial crop across vast expanses of the country, fell 18% for the year to $18.2bn amid a Chinese boycott sparked by Trump’s trade war. The White House maintains that trade imbalances translate directly into thousands of job losses, but while the tariffs protections help some companies, many others have struggled with higher prices and held off on investments amid the trade war. Some have even gone bankrupt or laid off workers as a result of the tariff battles.
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