NEW YORK, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The United States posted a record 1.24 trillion U.S. dollar trade deficit in goods in 2025, up 2.1 percent from the previous year, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Statistics show that the United States' annual exports and imports of goods stood at 2.19 trillion dollars and 3.43 trillion dollars in 2025.
Among main trading partners, the U.S. trade deficit in goods with the European Union dropped by 17.12 billion dollars year on year, while the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Vietnam increased by 25.42 billion dollars and 54.73 billion dollars year on year, respectively.
The United States had 339.47 billion dollars of trade surplus in services in 2025, up 27.6 billion dollars or 8.85 percent from the previous year, according to the data.
"The deficit in 2025 shows how little effect tariffs have had, for now, on the overall level of the deficit while distorting monthly trade flows as American businesses adapted to the changes in tariffs," Eugenio Aleman, chief economist at Raymond James, was quoted by MarketWatch as saying.
The tariffs significantly disrupted trade and the effective tariff rate in the United States reached 7.7 percent for 2025, the highest rate since 1947, noted Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.
"For all the disruption in timing and pattern, the overall balance of trade didn't fundamentally change. We shouldn't expect it to going forward either," York said Thursday on X.
The Trump administration has been claiming that tariffs would help bring back manufacturing jobs and reduce the U.S. trade deficit as it imposed additional tariffs on most of its trading partners in 2025. ■