The U.S. trade deficit got bigger in March.
The reason is sitting inside data centers across the country.
The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that the deficit climbed to $60.3 billion. That's a jump of $2.5 billion from February.
Imports rose 2.3% to $381.2 billion. Exports also rose, climbing 2% to an all-time high of $320.9 billion.
The single biggest driver was capital goods. That's the category that includes computer chips, servers, and the gear firms use to build out AI data centers.
It hit a record $120.7 billion in imports for the month.
A surge in computer parts alone added $2.0 billion to the import bill.
Most of that gear comes from Asia. Taiwan had the largest bilateral trade deficit with the U.S. in March at $20.6 billion.
The other top deficit partners look familiar: Vietnam at $19.2 billion, Mexico at $16.4 billion, China at $14 billion, and the European Union at $9.2 billion. The U.S. deficit with China widened for the third month in a row.
For investors, that's the trade-economy intersection AI keeps producing. Firms are spending billions to build out data centers. Most of the picks-and-shovels gear is made overseas. The deficit is the bill.
It wasn't all imports.
Industrial supplies and materials exports rose $5 billion, led by crude oil, petroleum products, and fuel oil. Petroleum trade swung to its biggest surplus ever in price-adjusted terms.
Food, feed, and beverage shipments overseas hit their highest level in roughly three years.
The services surplus, which captures things like financial services and software, grew $1.6 billion to $28.4 billion.
The bigger picture is more interesting than the March miss. Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit is down 55% versus the same period in 2025. Exports are up 12%. Imports are down 9.1%.
That swing reflects last year's tariff-driven shifts working their way through the data. After many rounds of Trump administration tariffs, U.S. importers spent much of 2025 pulling shipments forward and then pulling back. That left 2026 with a much smaller running deficit.
The three-month moving average deficit through March is $57.6 billion, down $70.4 billion versus the same period last year.
The U.S. trade story is split in two. Goods (think laptops, cars, oil) run a steep deficit. Services (think banking, software, consulting) run a strong surplus.
In March, the goods deficit widened by $4.1 billion to $88.7 billion. The services surplus rose by $1.6 billion to $28.4 billion.
That gap matters for investors. The U.S. trade story is no longer just about cheap imports of finished goods. It's also about how much the rest of the world pays for American know-how.
After stripping out price changes, the merchandise trade gap came in at $90.8 billion, 6.7% wider than the prior month.
Two threads to track from here.
First, whether the AI capex boom keeps pulling in foreign capital goods at a record pace. That single category did most of the work pushing March wider.
Second, whether tariffs keep shrinking the year-over-year deficit, or whether the AI-driven import surge starts to outweigh the tariff drag.
The next trade release lands June 9.
