Econ Updates

There are a few econ stats I wanted to pass along. The ADP payroll report showed an increase of 183,000 net new jobs last month. The government report is due out on Friday.

The trade deficit is soaring:

The United States imported more goods than ever last year, including a record amount from China, ballooning America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world to $891.3 billion and delivering a setback to President Trump’s goal of narrowing that gap.

The increase was driven by some factors outside Mr. Trump’s control, like a global economic slowdown and the relative strength of the United States dollar, both of which weakened overseas demand for American goods. But the widening gap was also exacerbated by Mr. Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut, which has been largely financed by government borrowing, and the trade war he escalated last year.

The trade deficit is the difference between how much a country sells to its trading partners and how much it buys. Mr. Trump has long boasted that his trade policies would reduce that gap, which he views as a measure of whether partners like China and the European Union are taking advantage of the United States, a diagnosis that few economists share.

Instead, in a year when Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels and a variety of Chinese goods, the trade deficit grew by 12.5 percent from 2017, or nearly $70 billion dollars, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. The deficit in goods, which Mr. Trump particularly targets, grew to $891.2 billion for the year, its highest level in history.

The February ISM Non-manufacturing index rose to 59.7 from 56.7 in January.

Posted by on March 6th, 2019 at 12:53 pm


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