The U.S. trade deficit in September fell to its lowest level since mid-2020, according to data from the Commerce Department released Thursday.
The gap in trade of goods and services shrank to $52.8 billion, an 11% reduction from the month before. The trade deficit hasn’t been that small since June 2020, when it totaled $49.2 billion.
A 3% increase in the value of exports helped shrink the deficit, driven by gold and pharmaceutical products. Imports increased by 0.6%.
The increase in gold exports is likely related to one-time factors. Earlier this year, fearing that President Trump would put tariffs on gold, traders reportedly imported large amounts of the precious metal. Now that Trump has refrained from taxing gold imports, the flow has reversed, contributing to the largest surplus on record with Switzerland as investors shipped gold back to their Alpine vaults.
Overall, the trade deficit is still larger through the first nine months of the year than it was in 2024. The year-over-year increase of 17% is driven largely by the rush to import goods after Trump took office, as U.S. firms stockpiled supplies ahead of his promised tariff hikes.
Tariffs cost households $1,200, study says: Trump’s unilateral tariff hikes are pushing up prices for American consumers, and a new study by Democrats on the bipartisan Joint Economic Committee finds that the import taxes cost U.S. households about $159 billion between February and November. That translates to roughly $1,198 per household in just 10 months.
If tariff-related cost increases remain at the November level of $24 billion per month in aggregate and $181 per household, consumers can expect to pay about $2,100 per year.
“While President Trump promised that he would lower costs, this report shows that his tariffs have done nothing but drive prices even higher for families,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, the senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, said in a statement. “At a time when both parties should be working together to lower costs, the President’s tax on American families is simply making things more expensive.”
Other experts have come to similar conclusions. Kimberly Clausing, an economist at UCLA School of Law and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, has estimated that the Trump tariffs amount to a $1,700 per year tax increase on U.S. households. Clausing told the Associated Press that the tariffs are “the largest tax increase on American consumers in a generation, lowering standards of living for all Americans.’'
The Trump administration denies that U.S. companies and consumers pay the cost of the tariffs, which are taxes collected from importers inside the country, but virtually all economists agree that the burden of tariffs is incurred largely domestically.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai claimed the tariffs will help Americans by fostering new investment agreements with foreign firms. “President Trump’s tariffs have actually secured trillions in investments to make and hire in America as well as historic trade deals that finally level the playing field for American workers and industries,” Desai told the AP.