Tariffs did not and will not eliminate trade deficits.
The Advance Economic Indicators Report for August was a trade disaster.
Advance International Trade in Goods
- The international trade deficit was $132.6 billion in August, up $13.7 billion from $118.9 billion in July.
- Exports of goods for August were $203.4 billion, $3.7 billion more than July exports.
- Imports of goods for August were $336.1 billion, $17.4 billion more than July imports.
Advance Wholesale Inventories
- Wholesale inventories for August, adjusted for seasonal variations and trading day differences, but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $965.7 billion, up 0.7 percent (±0.2 percent) from July 2026, and were up 6.6 percent (±1.1 percent) from August 2025.
- The June 2026 to July 2026 percentage change was unrevised from the preliminary estimate of up 1.3 percent (±0.2 percent).
Advance Retail Inventories
- Retail inventories for August, adjusted for seasonal variations and trading day differences, but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $881.6 billion, up 0.3 percent (±0.2 percent) from July 2026, and were up 4.8 percent (±0.7 percent) from August 2025.
- The June 2026 to July 2026 percentage change was unrevised from up 0.8 percent (±0.2 percent).
Goods Exports and Imports
There is no indication Trump’s tariffs are doing anything other than raising consumer prices.
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Further proof of taco continuing lies. What a total nut job.
It would be interesting to seee the same graphic displays for significant countries like Mexico, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, India, Great Britain, etc.
And I always thought that when Trump says “the numbers are through the roof,” he means his own bank account …
Trump is the village idiot, just from a really big village
A really big idiot village with enough idiots to vote him as the idiot village idiot.
This may help explain.
https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
A new study indicates that Americans with lower scores on a vocabulary test commonly used to measure cognitive ability are more likely to endorse Christian nationalist beliefs, even when accounting for their overall level of education. The findings suggest that the appeal of this political and religious ideology relates to underlying cognitive resources rather than just differences in schooling. The research was published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
I’ll help translate: 5D dumb.
I wonder how the BLS statisticians computed the tariffs in the trade balance. Unless they added it to the GDP, because Murcah!
PS. of course i realize that border taxes raise the cost of those grocery items. us classical liberals(libertarians) have been proposing less war war, and more jaw jaw, which includes both military wars and trade wars. trump is a con man, and maga cult are moron hillbillies and flyover folks from south brooklyn to kansas.
if trade deficits mean USA is getting “ripped off” Trump is getting more ripped off than ever. By his own logic trump is absolutely taking it hard in the ass from our all our trading partners worse than any president in history haha
You got that backwards.
We are continuing to loot the rest of the world, “paying” for their stuff with fake “money” created out of thin air that loses value rapidly.
The real question is ‘What are the countries on the receiving end of all those dollars going to do with them?”
Cross your fingers and hope they buy Treasuries?
Bonds and stocks.
my only quibble is countries don’t have trade deficits. individual people and companies might. and is it all bad. my trade deficit with my local grocery store has been a wonderful trading relationship. i hopefully make money from time to time, trading stocks……..and spend it on some good tasting food.
That’s not a trade deficit, that’s you spending your money on goods (food).
A deficit would mean you were using credit cards to buy that food (and other things) or the store was extending you credit to buy their food hoping you’d pay them in the future.
nope. not what a deficit is. you are just talking financing. whether my rich aunt buys my food or i borrow from a loan shark. or shop lift.
FYI for centuries in the middle ages, the chinese merchant ships would travel all over SE asia. as far away as India and coast of africa and with the venetians of my blood lines in northern italia……..they would normally extend credit on their silk shirts and spices and other great products. they generally wanted Gold. and some other hard products. over time. they would take the princelings of all those places back on ships with concubines and show them the libraries and great things in china. to give the customers great experience to keep the gold flowing to them. there are some wonderful history books on this topic. why i keep on taking college classes since 1978.
Yippee I love you but I have no clue what you’re talking about here.
The Silk Road.
Midterms ever closer, Gold starting its nosedive. Got Gold, Got Problems, unless you can afford to Hold It! Here we go, for one wild Gold ride on the way! Bugs are setting themselves up very nicely for there usual move, as it’s shaping up perfectly to be…
Sold my small collection of silver eagles a few months back for $74 each. I’ve enjoyed watching the steep decline.
One of the first things you learn in economics is that, by definition, the external deficit of a country is the difference between a country’s savings and investment. Therefore, tariffs can only lower a trade deficit if they lower investment or increase savings. I suspect that Trump’s refusal to publish his Penn economics grades suggests that he slept through his economics classes or, more likely, that he wasn’t able to grasp what a definition is.
Current account deficit, not manufactures.
The above data is without the mitigating (small) trade surplus for services.
This number clearly demonstrates the failure of Trumps tariff, war and bullying policies against our trading partners and allies.
With the U.S. exporting every drop of oil it can pump refine or liquify at elevated war premiums, one would expect a trade surplus. But no, our trading partners are not buying our automobiles, trucks, airliners, corn, soy or wheat and most nations are avoiding U.S. made products because of Trumps radical aggression.
History is full of examples of failed tariff policies and implementation. Tariffs are best defined as “Economic Warfare” and often lead to Hot Wars.
Who does Trump work for?
Himself?
Big Oil?
Military Establishment?
The Banks?
Israel?
All of the above? (for a price)…
All the above….
Crypto grifters. (Iran and North Korea still interaction with some.) Mega-Tech. It’s an open bazaar. Everyone but his ultimate fiduciary clients (us).
don’t worry old sport. he’ll bail out the farmers like he did first term. he is both a grifter and a whore. like many folks on wall street and in the farm belt. trump is the best friend of usa cannabis companies. they did have to pay him big to get him to move on DEA rescheduling.
No, no, no. Its not acute problem.
Chronic problem for decades.
Not because of Trump.
But Trump just made the wrong diagnosis and wrong treatment.
The problem is multifactorial.
You are getting warmer.
This reminds me of the Reagan pitch in 1980 that the USA, with lower taxes, would surge forward to a renaissance of productivity. The Laffer curve said those increases would raise all boats and more than fix any tax cut/government funding issues. I laughed that the American people he was flattering, wouldn’t in fact surge forward and alter their lives to embrace all risks needed to fill that gap, for the benefit of the general public. Rather many would pocket the tax cut money. There were some increases, and important restructuring, but a lot went to richer folks’ portfolios, and offshoring manufacturing, and the deficit gapped out. That was the start of something, for Republicans’ pitches. Fiscal discipline waned, as certain important pockets were lined. And yes, prosperity had lagged here and was due a kick in the pants. And a good deal of that did happen. I don’t pretend things are so simple.
Trump’s version now was that tariffs would lead to a re-shored USA manufacturing renaissance. Oh yeah, and more, more (post-W. Bush) tax cuts too. But who were those martyrs who would put up the mountains of capital and sweat to risk that reordering of the world, for the less privileged MAGA voters’ sake? Certainly not his incompetent “trade reps” or roving ambassadors or whatever they are, who have personally enriched themselves. So one scenario from here is just another leg downward (for some players) in a similar dynamic. No redirection. No fix along the lines claimed. Higher prices from trade beefs (alongside inflation, forms of tax rise for the less wealthy). A very nice world for very big mobile capital.
Artie Laughter is one of Trump’s advisors.
RAYGUN was a con man and grifter. like trump. raygun tripled the total outstanding us debt. doubled the military industrial spending. in peaceful times. he was a lifelong pitch man for GE. MICC big boy.
It seems no matter how little we expect of our politicians, they always surprise us by going lower.I don’t expect Washington to solve our deficit, economic woes, or anything else.
A lot of people seem to be pretty upset about things. I love it when the spotlight falls on the ones who have helped sink the country. Enjoy!
“America, Betrayed From Within”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x_4oZAltoE&t=6s
The US Economy “Is Running Hot,” Lots of Consumer Spending Growth, Lots of Inflation. The Bond Market Sees it Too
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/09/30/the-us-economy-is-running-hot-lots-of-consumer-spending-growth-lots-of-inflation-the-bond-market-sees-it-too/
If we ever allow Japanese used cars or Chinese new cars in with low or no tariffs this trade deficit would be considered peanuts. American auto manufacturers would collapse.
They already collapsed for me. Haven’t bought one in decades.
me neither. they are total crap.
If the USA ever allows Chinese EVs to be sold in the USA, the effect would be 5x worse than removing tariffs on Japanese mfrs.
My guess is once they work out what to do with the software spying part of things (maybe they’ll have to have US software) that Chinese EV’s will be both made here and sold here. I would not be surprised to see an agreement to build them here sometime in the next 2-4 years.
But the myth of the 20K EV will be just that, a myth. The price will be on par with whatever cars cost here now because China isn’t going to give them away, they will maximize profit same as anyone else would.
you make no sense. on this specific topic. see where they are priced in other parts of the globe.
Yes, Chinese EVs are already sold very cheaply right across the border in Mexico, but US States refuse to register them if brought across the border.
exactly
“But the myth of the 20K EV will be just that, a myth. The price will be on par with whatever cars cost here now because China isn’t going to give them away, they will maximize profit same as anyone else would.”
I don’t think you understand how markets work.
But… they’re communists!
ha ha ha. if the 21st c. chinese are communists, than i’m kareem abdul jabaar. a childhood hero
Easy.
Buy anything with newly printed paper money.
When they don’t want these paper they will stop selling.
Two of them did collapse in 2008, but were rescued by the state. We are lucky to live in a capitalist country!
There goes N-gDp.
Well the world thinks it needs dollars so the USA produces and exports them.
If you include that, the deficit is zero.
Producing dollars is not very hard – clickety click another trillion.
Producing cars, phones, steel, etc takes much more effort.
So the USA is profiting big time from the trade!
… or what am I missing?
Yes, the USA is profiting big time but consumers are hurting big time paying higher costs and borrowing to do it. The win-win for consumers is to either lower consumption or move to a place with the same Chinese and foreign goods and no/lower tariffs.
If you’re an investor, you want to invest in those big profiting firms in the USA and take those profits and use them in low trade barrier, low cost countries, live like a king happily ever after.
Yes…
No clue why anyone would downvote that (0 / -1 score currently).
Nothing wrong to be king!
The growing foreign ownership of our real estate and companies. We’ve sold off our country, if we honor all that paper we gave them. That’s a problem for the young people though…
the usa financed itself for first many decades by land sales and yes tariffs. i’d suggest we start selling off fed and state land. maybe even re institute the old homesteading give aways. hard working women and men can be given 40 acres and an old mule. so much land in our near virgin continent.
The Great Basin not very arable.
i call it computer currency. some intern at NYFED taps on the zero key…….and like magic, new currency. no need to chop trees for paper, or spill ink. or god forbid mine gold,silver and copper. CA, NV and AZ. the gold, silver and copper states.
Congratulation Trump!
Whatever you touch gold turn to lead.
I would say something other than lead…
What if there were no tariffs? The trade deficit would be worse, and more Americans would be out of jobs.
So are you saying before Trump’s tariffs, unemployment was sky high? The labor graphs for the last 30 years would disagree. Without tariffs, the cost of goods would be a lot lower so everyone would be able to buy a lot more for a lot less.
Midterms coming up, we’ll see how much Americans like Trump and his GOP clowns.
Interesting, how would that work? How would tariffs protect more jobs than they would take away?
He should choose to keep silent on this one.
Before Trump2, around 21 million Americans worked in selling and servicing imported products. Imports create jobs. Fortunately for our economy, most of the people working in selling and servicing imported products still have their jobs. Your boy inflicted on Americans the largest tax increase in American history, and not a single Republican legislator said a word. He looked Americans right in the eye and said China, etc. would be paying the tariffs. Did China get a refund? No. Amazon got one. And in the 3rd quarter that refund becomes income and is part of Q3 GDP growth. Hilarious.
You assume facts not in evidence.
Please furnish us some evidence ?