Trump wanted to eliminate the trade deficit. It hit a record high in 2025

President Donald Trump's all-out effort to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign products isn't going as planned.

New trade data from the Census Bureau published on Thursday shows that the December trade deficit reached $70.3 billion, a 33% increase from the prior month. Scott Lincicome, a trade expert who is vice president of general economics at the libertarian Cato Institute, observed on social media that the inflation-adjusted goods trade deficit hit a record last year.

The new data is a sign that the U.S. still continues to do business with firms across sectors around the world, despite Trump's effort to make the U.S. more self-sufficient through a tariff blitz that has been reordering global trade.

Part of the December increase in the trade deficit was driven by additional imports of industrial supplies like crude oil, copper, and gold.

Americans typically have bought most of their consumer products from China, including toys, clothes, computers, and other goods that can be mass-produced with low labor costs.

Instead, Americans are now snapping up more goods from Mexico, Vietnam, and other trading partners instead to dodge the higher double-digit tariffs applied to Beijing. Overall trade, though, swung erratically last year, with October recording the lowest trade deficit on record.

Economists broadly agree that the tariffs have increased the cost of consumer goods across the board and that Americans are paying for it, not foreign firms as Trump has insisted would be the case.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reinforced that conclusion with a recent study, which drew ire from the White House on Wednesday. Kevin Hassett, a top Trump economic adviser, urged the researchers associated with the analysis should be "disciplined."