The U.S. trade deficit dropped to its lowest level since 2009 in October last year as imports declined

Due to the decline in imports, the trade deficit of the United States narrowed to the smallest since 2009 in October last year.

Data released by the US Department of Commerce on Thursday (January 8th) showed that the trade deficit in goods and services in October shrank by 39% to $29.4 billion compared with September, much lower than the $58.7 billion expected by market economists.

Due to the decline in imports of medical supplies and nonmonetary gold, the total import value dropped by 3.2% in October, while the export value rose by 2.6%.

Over the past year, due to the Trump administration's implementation of large-scale tariff measures, the monthly import and export trade figures have fluctuated significantly. In the previous few months, in response to President Trump's wavering tariff policy, importers made large-scale purchases of non-monetary gold and pharmaceutical preparations.

However, this trend reversed sharply in October, and the import of drug preparations dropped to the lowest level since July 2022.

Due to the continuous shutdown of the US federal government for several weeks since last October, the trade data for October was not released until this month.