You check your portfolio one morning and see red everywhere. […]
It's been exactly one year since President Trump stood in front of the cameras and declared war on trade deficits.
Three hundred sixty-five days, two rounds of tariffs, one Supreme Court ruling, and a brand-new trade law later - the monthly trade gap is almost identical to where it started.
February's trade gap landed at $57.3 billion. That's up from $54.5 billion in January - a 4.9% increase.
What drove it? Imports climbed 4.3% to $372.1 billion. Exports rose too, but not quite as fast - 4.2% to $314.8 billion.
The gap between those two growth rates is tiny. But when you're talking hundreds of billions, even a fraction of a percent pushes the deficit wider.
Most of the damage came from physical goods. The goods-only gap grew by $2.5 billion.
The services surplus - where the U.S. typically comes out ahead - dipped to $27.3 billion.
One big contributor to the import spike: AI hardware. Companies kept loading up on tech gear - computers, servers, and related equipment - as the AI infrastructure buildout rolls on.
The past twelve months have been a rollercoaster for anyone shipping goods into or out of the country.
Trump's original tariff plan - sweeping duties under an emergency powers law - got thrown out by the Supreme Court on February 20. The court ruled he had gone beyond what Congress allowed.
His response was fast. Within days, replacement tariffs appeared under a separate legal authority - one that expires in July.
That means the rules could shift all over again in a few months. For investors watching trade-sensitive stocks, nothing has settled.
The full-year 2025 trade gap was $901.5 billion - barely different from the $903.5 billion recorded during Biden's final year.
That's a $2 billion difference on a $900 billion base. Basically a rounding error.
The biggest individual gaps? Mexico at $16.8 billion, Vietnam at $16.5 billion, and China at $13.1 billion.
Wall Street expected a $62 billion gap for February - nearly $5 billion higher than what actually showed up. One better-than-feared reading doesn't make a trend, but it shows the post-court trade picture hasn't spiraled the way some predicted.
A full year of tariff policy produced a trade deficit that landed right where it started.
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