Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail in 2016 that, if elected president, he would bring about a rapid and unprecedented decline in the U.S. trade deficit.
But new figures released by the Commerce Department on Thursday—nearly four years after Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election—show that the trade deficit soared to a 12-year high in July due in large part to a surge in imports, bringing the total negative trade balance in the first seven months of 2020 to $340 billion.
“Trump pledged to eliminate the trade deficit and end job outsourcing, but the overall 2020 deficit is on track to be larger than when he took office, and his Labor Department has certified more than 300,000 American jobs were lost to outsourcing and imports during his presidency,” Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said in a statement. Continue reading.