The U.S. trade deficit reached a record high in January on a surge of imports, with President Donald Trump vowing to reverse the trend by curbing foreign goods and boosting domestic production.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced on March 6 that America’s trade gap with the world surged 34 percent in January to an all-time high of $131.4 billion, up from $98.1 billion in December.
Imports surged 10.0 percent—the sharpest increase since July 2020—to $401.2 billion, while goods imports jumped 12.3 percent to a record $329.5 billion.
The rise in imports was largely driven by industrial supplies and materials, which increased $23.1 billion, with $20.5 billion coming from finished metal shapes—including gold bars. If so, more than half of January’s import spike may have been due to gold shipments, analysts say….