The U.S. trade deficit reached a record high in January on a surge of imports, with President Donald Trump vowing to reverse the trend by curbing foreign goods and boosting domestic production.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced on March 6 that America’s trade gap with the world surged 34 percent in January to an all-time high of $131.4 billion, up from $98.1 billion in December.
Imports surged 10.0 percent—the sharpest increase since July 2020—to $401.2 billion, while goods imports jumped 12.3 percent to a record $329.5 billion.
The rise in imports was largely driven by industrial supplies and materials, which increased $23.1 billion, with $20.5 billion coming from finished metal shapes—including gold bars. If so, more than half of January’s import spike may have been due to gold shipments, analysts say.
Trump, a longtime critic of America’s trade imbalances, blamed the trend on his predecessor President Joe Biden, who was in office before his second presidency started on Jan. 20.
While Trump did not outline specific policy actions in his post, he has consistently championed tariffs as an effective tool to reduce the trade deficit and reshore American manufacturing by discouraging imports and incentivizing domestic production.
While tariffs can shift trade flows and reduce imports in the short term, some economists argue that deeper fiscal and exchange rate policies have a more lasting impact on trade balances.
PIIE said that smaller fiscal deficits help lower interest rates and weaken the dollar.
“That, in turn, makes imports more expensive and exports cheaper to foreigners, shrinking a trade deficit or increasing a trade surplus,” the group said.
Meanwhile, economist Peter Schiff warned that the widening deficit is a symptom of a deeper economic problem—America’s overreliance on consumption and imported goods.
Schiff has long advocated for a shift toward domestic production, higher savings, and reduced government spending, both to address the trade gap and for sustainable long-term growth.
The record trade deficit, combined with weaker consumer spending, has raised concerns about an economic slowdown. The Atlanta Federal Reserve now projects that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink at an annualized rate of 2.4 percent in the first quarter, with the sharp rise in imports acting as the biggest drag on growth.
However, if the January import surge was a temporary pre-tariff rush rather than a sustained trend, the trade deficit could narrow in the coming months, potentially leading to upward revisions in GDP estimates.
“It could be win-win,” said Christine McDaniel, a former U.S. trade official now at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “It’s in other countries’ interests to reduce those tariffs.”
