In June, the trade balance of US goods and services registered a reduction in the deficit to 60.2 billion dollars, according to the data published on Tuesday by the Department of Commerce.
This represents a 16% reduction compared to May.
The result is much better than expected by analysts, who expected a commercial deficit – the difference between what matters and what exports – of 61,000 million dollars in June, according to the consensus published by Marketwatch.
In April, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on most of the United States commercial partners and also applied tariffs much higher to steel, aluminum and cars.
In detail, the fall in imports of goods, of 3.7%, represents part of the reduction of the commercial deficit.
This decline is recorded mainly in pharmaceutical products, in the automotive sector and oil in which production costs have been reduced.
American exports also descended, but in a minimum index (-0.5%), a fall that mainly affects gold and metals. On the contrary, exports of machinery and civil planes increased.
Due to geographical distribution, the commercial deficit with China was reduced by 4.6 billion dollars, to 9.4 billion dollars, indicating a slight slowdown of trade between the two countries in search of a new agreement.
Washington and Beijing applied progressive tariffs to their respective products in April, reaching three digit levels and hindering supply lines between the two largest economies in the world.
But in May they reached a temporary agreement to reduce these tariffs until August 12.
