General

According to data released by the U.S. Department of Commerce on the 8th, mainly due to the surge in imports of consumer goods, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in December 2021 increased by 1.8% month-on-month to $80.7 billion, pushing the annual trade deficit to $859.1 billion, a record. new highs.

Data show that in December last year, the value of U.S. exports of goods and services increased by 1.5% month-on-month to $228.1 billion, and the value of imports increased by 1.6% month-on-month to $308.9 billion. Among them, merchandise exports increased by US$2 billion month-on-month to US$158.3 billion, and service exports increased to US$69.9 billion. At the same time, due to the sharp increase in the import value of consumer goods such as mobile phones and toys, the import value of goods in the month increased by US$5.2 billion from the previous month to US$259.7 billion, while the import value of services decreased by US$400 million to US$49.2 billion.

The data also shows that in 2021, U.S. exports of goods and services will increase by 18.5% to $2.53 trillion from 2020, while imports will increase by 20.5% to $3.39 trillion. Compared with 2020, the trade deficit will widen by 27% in 2021.

Analysts believe that the main reason for the continued expansion of the U.S. trade deficit in 2021 is that the U.S. government has introduced large-scale fiscal spending measures during the new crown epidemic, which has boosted national savings and stimulated consumers to buy more goods, resulting in inventory of goods including consumer goods. Tension, companies restocked inventories aggressively, which in turn drove the import value to rise sharply. Economists expect U.S. trade conditions to be difficult to return to normal levels in the short term, as U.S. domestic consumption growth has yet to show signs of slowing.