Record foreign trade deficit in the USA in 2021

The foreign trade deficit broke a record last year as US consumers' spending shifted to goods rather than services during the pandemic.

According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, the foreign trade deficit increased by 26.9% and reached 859.1 billion dollars. The trade deficit thus widened in the second year. In 2020, the external deficit was 676.7 billion dollars.

In December, the foreign trade deficit increased by 1.8 percent to 80.7 billion dollars. The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was $83 billion.

While imports increased by 20.5 percent on an annual basis and rose to $ 3.39 trillion compared to 2020, exports increased by 18.5 percent to $ 2.53 trillion in this period.