A strong dollar helped drive an uptick in U.S. imports last year, while export growth remained modest.
The U.S. trade deficit in goods hit a record last year, as American consumers snapped up imported products and a strong U.S. dollar weighed on export growth. …
The service sector continued to fuel growth in the U.S. economy, driven by foreign spending on travel in the United States, as well as sales of American business and financial services…
…
America’s total trade deficit in goods and services, which consists of exports minus imports, grew 17 percent to $918.4 billion… [end quote]
The U.S. has run a trade deficit since at least 1992. The rest of the world seems to be happy to accept IOUs endlessly.
It’s hard to say how these trade flows will be impacted by tariff wars.
TI has defined trade deficits as “theft”. His casus belli for the trade war with Canada and Mexico was the hundreds of Billions in trade deficit with those two countries. But now, the tariff threats look more like another “show” for the Proles.
Reportedly there was a surge in demand for imported goods, by people trying to front run the promised tariffs, which did not happen.
Most automakers no longer report sales monthly. Ford does. After an 8.8% sales gain in Q4, 2024, Ford sales dropped 6.3% in Q1, 25.
Speaking of Ford, the company abandoned the Indian market a few years ago. Ford sold one Indian plant to Tata. They were in negotiations to sell the other plant in December 23, then cut off negotiations. Last September, with great fanfare, Ford announced they would reopen the Chennai plant, to build for export. Ever since, I have waited for word on what they would build there, and where they would ship it, but Ford went silent.
The news dropped a couple days ago. Ford is saying “never mind”.
To be fair, sales are down 6.3% in the first month of the year, not for the entire Q1 - and for a month that saw record snow fall throughout much of the country. Auto sales are always lousy during bad weather.
That should not be taken as an endorsement of Ford, just providing some perspective.
Yes, you are correct, January, not Q1. For giggles, I pulled up Ford’s previous reports. In October, their sales were up 15.2%. In November, up 14.3%. They released a Q4 report, rather than a December report, which was an 8.8% gain. So December must have zukked, to pull down the 14-15% gains of the first two months of the quarter.
It’s amusing that Ford picked today to announce their CFO is being kicked upstairs. I could be wrong, but tonight’s report could be interesting.