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The American trade deficit of goods reached a record level in March while the companies were downloaded before the purchases before the taxation of President Donald Trump of scanning prices on imports.
The gap between imports and exports widened to $ 162 billion in March, against $ 92.8 billion at the same time in 2024, marking the highest figure on files extending in the early 1990s, according to US Census Bureau.
The increase in the trade balance has been almost entirely reduced to an increase in imports – in particular those which have a long shelf life, such as cars, industrial materials and consumer goods.
The figures add weight to the reports that American companies have increased their stocks before the introduction of steep prices by the Trump administration.
“The image for [the first quarter of 2025] Overall, President Trump’s pricing threats rushed to buy goods now rather than facing prices later later, which caused a surprising increase in imports, “said Oliver Allen, principal American economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
The American president unveiled a series of so-called reciprocal rates on April 2, causing a high sale on the equity markets and an increase in the financing costs of the US government, investors at the risk of the risk that high prices would lead to the American economy in the recession and global growth of blows.
While the introduction of several of these prices was interrupted for 90 days on April 4, a basic line of 10% remains in place, as is a 145% sample on most Chinese imports. Economists say that, even without the prices of April 2 in place, the current scenario leaves US trade tasks at their highest effective rate for more than a century.
The report comes before the first estimate of GDP in the first quarter, which should be released on Wednesday, which should be distorted by the impact of frontage.
Analysts interviewed by Reuters expect annualized quarterly growth of only 0.3%, compared to 2.4% for the fourth quarter of last year.
But economists say that the figures are likely to paint an overly negative table of American growth.
“The GDP number will tell us very little,” said Isabelle Mateos y Lago, chief economist of BNP Paribas. “It will be full of noise and think to a very large extent, the sum of imports.”
She added: “You will need to really look under the hood to see what is really going on.”
Economists expect a partial reversal in the second quarter as imports fall and push GDP.
“Today [trade] The figures really highlight the risk that it is a negative impression of GDP and this obviously prepares us for a very low 2025, “said James Knightley, international economist in the Bank Ing” This is a big storage effort to get ahead of the prices. . . But we expect it to relax very soon: port data already slows down. »»
Ports on the west coast such as Los Angeles have reported a sharp drop in freight volumes in recent weeks, in the midst of signs that ships carrying products from the east coast of China.
Anecdotal reports of construction shortages and industrial products from China have also started to emerge.
Additional George Steer report in New York
