A boat passes a cargo ship with containers at the Yantian Port Terminal in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, 30 October 2025.
Tingshu Wang | Reuters
The U.S. deficit with global trading partners nearly doubled in November as the deficit with the European Union widened and the President’s influence. Donald Trump’s tariffs have worked their way through the economy, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.
Where in a month? trade deficit Hitting the lowest level since the beginning of 2009, it rose to $56.8 billion, a 94.6% increase from October. About a third of this gain was in the European Union, where the goods deficit increased by $8.2 billion. The trade deficit with China decreased by about $1 billion to $13.9 billion.
On an annualized basis, the November deficit was $839.5 billion, or about 4 percent higher than the same period in 2024.
The rising deficit is countering Trump’s efforts to use tariffs to reduce imbalances around the world. When it announced the so-called reciprocal tariffs in April 2025, the White House used the level of trade deficits with various countries as a baseline to determine tariffs.
As the year went by, Trump softened his stance. In August, a framework agreement between the US and the EU set tariffs at 15% on most European goods, seeking to stabilize relations between the two sides.