Preview: Due April 4 - U.S. February Trade Balance - Higher deficit, exports and imports
We expect a February trade deficit of $68.5bn, up from $67.4n in January, and the third straight increase in the deficit to its highest level since April 2023.
While a rising deficit is negative for GDP both exports and imports should look quite strong, up by 2.0% and 1.9% respectively, with the imports increase the larger one in USD terms. Advance goods data has already showed gains of 2.8% in goods exports and 2.3% in goods imports, with gains broad in both series but particularly strong in food.
The advance data also showed strong gains of 0.5% in retail and wholesale inventories in February, which offsets some of the negative GDP implications from the trade data. We expect the services balance to show gains of 0.5% in exports and 0.4% in imports, allowing the services surplus to show its first increase in four months.
