The skyrocketing U.S. trade deficit last year hit the highest level in a decade, despite President Donald Trump’s global trade offensive, according to a government report Wednesday.
America’s trade deficit with the world jumped 12.5 percent to $621 billion, the Commerce Department reported, as both imports and exports rose to the highest levels ever. The deficit in 2017 was $552.3 billion.
And the trade gaps with China, Mexico and the European Union all jumped to all-time highs even after Washington slapped tariffs on hundreds of billions in imports from its largest trading partners.
In December, the overall U.S. trade deficit also vaulted past expectations, surging 18.8 percent and likely weighing on an economy which already was slowing at the close of the year.
For a president who describes imbalanced trade as a defeat for the world’s largest economy, the new records marked a stunning but foreseeable reversal for Trump’s signature policy.
Solid growth, low unemployment and consumers’ thirst for foreign products drove imports of goods and services up 7.5 percent to a record $3.1 trillion in 2018.
American exports of goods and services also rose, but not enough to chip away at the imbalance. Exports increased 6.3 percent to $2.5 trillion last year, also their highest levels ever.
As the country becomes a net oil exporter, crude oil sales abroad more than doubled to $47 billion.
But soybean exports, a crucial crop across vast expanses of the country, fell 18 percent for the year to $18.2 billion, amid a Chinese boycott sparked by Trump’s trade war.