As U.S. trade deficit widens, Trump’s economic agenda is failing on his own terms

At an ostensibly nonpolitical event in Maryland, Donald Trump took fresh steps Tuesday to characterize the nation’s economic status quo as some kind of historic marvel.

“This is the golden age of America,” the president argued, ignoring widespread public dissatisfaction with the economy. “We’re doing numbers that nobody ever thought were possible. We’re doing the biggest numbers economically that we’ve ever done in the history of our country.”

The Republican didn’t specify which of the “numbers” he’s so proud of, probably because he was pitching a delusion: There are no metrics to show any unprecedented economic successes in 2026. On the contrary, most of the data points in a decidedly discouraging direction, as evidenced by last week’s awful jobs report.

Making matters worse was the trade data that reached the public right around the same time the president was peddling his bogus claims. The New York Times reported:

After 20 months in office and with the midterm elections approaching, President Trump is at pains to demonstrate his administration’s economic wins. But one metric he has identified as an important measuring stick for his policies has been moving steadily in the wrong direction.

The U.S. trade deficit — a measure of the difference between what the country imports and what it exports — rose sharply in August to hit a 17-month high, after also rising significantly in July, data from the Commerce Department showed Tuesday.

According to the latest data, the trade gap widened by 14%, reaching a seasonally adjusted total of roughly $106 billion, which is the widest gap since March 2025 in the run-up to the White House’s failed “Liberation Day” trade tariffs.

The trade deficit is now larger than at any time during Joe Biden’s presidency.

Now, some readers may be tempted to send me annoyed messages via Bluesky, telling me that trade deficits aren’t all that significant. I will gladly concede the point. In fact, I’ve long argued that the importance of trade deficits has been exaggerated.

The latest data struck me as notable, however, because of the importance the president has placed on the issue. The Times’ report noted that the Trump administration “has viewed the metric as a sign of weakness in America’s manufacturing sector.”

Indeed, one of central reasons Trump launched his tariffs agenda in the first place was to reduce the trade deficit, making it one of the White House’s key economic goals.

And yet, after the president failed to shrink the trade deficit in his first term, there’s fresh evidence that he’s failing again in his second term.

In other words, Trump is the one who said this is a metric that matters, and he’s failing, not by independent standards, but by his own standards.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

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