{"id":872981,"date":"2026-10-06T16:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/872981\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T16:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:54:19","slug":"trade-deficit-hits-105-6-billion-widest-since-just-before-trump-tariffs-enacted-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/872981\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade deficit hits $105.6 billion, widest since just before Trump tariffs enacted last year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trucks move goods in a shipping container next to large stacks of shipping containers and cranes at the Port of Long Beach Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. <\/p>\n

Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images<\/p>\n

The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in August amid an influx of goods related to the artificial intelligence build-out and the vagaries of import tariffs, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Imports swelled 4.3% for the month, pushing the total imbalance to $105.6 billion. That marked a 13.7% jump from July and was ahead of the Dow Jones consensus estimate for $102 billion.<\/p>\n

It also was the steepest deficit since the all-time gap in March 2025, recorded just before President Donald Trump<\/a>‘s “liberation day” announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.<\/p>\n

Though the monthly total was up, the year-to-date deficit of $138.2 billion was off nearly 20% from the same period a year ago. <\/p>\n

“Rising prices overstate the moves, but nonetheless net trade is set to drag on Q3 GDP growth,” said Oren Klachkin, financial economist at Nationwide. “We see this as a sign of strong domestic demand, not economic weakness.”<\/p>\n

Imports as a rule generally subtract from gross domestic product calculations. However, if the imports reflect stronger demand and consumption, they can be offset elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Goldman Sachs cut its tracking estimate for third-quarter economic growth to 3.1%, down 0.3 percentage point from its prior estimate. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow tracker lowered its estimate to 3.7% following the trade report, down 0.1 percentage point from the last update.<\/p>\n

\"Resilient<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trucks move goods in a shipping container next to large stacks of shipping containers and cranes at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[6479,4,449,1071,28,122,1072,12,1051,101,6993,111,447,21],"class_list":["post-872981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-tariff","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-economy","tag-breaking-news-politics","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-economic-events","tag-economy","tag-goldman-sachs-bdc-inc","tag-politics","tag-trade","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}