US Trade Deficit Rose to $502.3B in 2016

The U.S. trade deficit rose slightly in 2016 to $502.3 billion, marking the highest level in four years and underscoring the difficulty the Trump administration faces in bringing the nation’s trade outlook back into balance.

The trade gap widened last year because exports fell faster than imports, the result of a weak global economy and a stronger dollar DXY, +0.63%  that made American products more expensive to foreign buyers.

The U.S. trade gap was the largest since 2012. The last time the country ran a surplus was in the mid-1970s when Gerald Ford was president.

The deficit with Mexico, the biggest target of President Donald Trump’s wrath, rose 4.2% to $63.2 billion in 2016 to mark a five-year high, according to government data.

The gap with China is by far the largest among the major U.S. trading partners. Although the deficit dropped 5.5% in 2016, it still totaled $347 billion. That’s more than three-fifths of the overall U.S. trade deficit.

In December, meanwhile, the trade deficit fell as expected. The gap in the final month of 2016 dipped 3.2% to $44.3 billion, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a $44.9 billion deficit.

Exports rose 2.7% $190.7 billion, led by higher shipments of passenger planes and parts.

via MarketWatch

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza