Through President Donald Trump’s first full 10 months in office, the cumulative U.S. trade deficit in goods and services was down 3.9% from the same period in 2024. His claim that he has “slashed our trade deficit by 77%” appears to compare the monthly trade deficit in January 2025 to the deficit nine months later in October.Economic experts told us that Trump’s method is not the preferable way to measure whether the overall trade imbalance with international trading partners is up or down.
“[L]ooking at changes from one month to another is not a reliable way to assess whether the trade deficit is rising or falling in any meaningful sense,” Kyle Handley, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, wrote in an email to us.He said “[m]onthly trade balance figures are extremely volatile” and “reflect timing of shipments, energy prices, seasonal adjustment noise, and one-off transactions.” He suggested instead looking at trade trends over several months or, when possible, a full year.
