Capital Economics and Goldman Sachs cut third-quarter GDP forecasts
The U.S. trade deficit widened to $105.6 billion in August, a 13.7% jump from July and the steepest gap since March 2025, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. The August figure was driven by $420.8 billion in imports against $315.2 billion in exports, with imports rising 4.3% during the month and exports rising 1.4%.
The data released Tuesday cover the first month after new Trump tariffs took effect. The president announced new tariffs in late July. The previous deficit peak — March 2025 — occurred just before Trump’s announcement of increased tariffs against U.S. trading partners.
Private forecasters moved quickly to revise their third-quarter GDP estimates after the release. Capital Economics said the “sharp rise in imports suggests third-quarter GDP growth will be well below our current forecast of 4.0%” and that the final annualized figure could be closer to 2.5%. The firm added that the “relatively broad-based rise in goods imports mean net trade was still a drag overall.”
Goldman Sachs cut its tracking estimate for third-quarter economic growth to 3.1%, a reduction of 0.3 percentage point. Oren Klachkin, a financial economist at Nationwide, said “rising prices overstate the moves, but nonetheless net trade is set to drag on Q3 GDP growth.”
Artificial intelligence concerns had an impact as well, with August data showing companies increased semiconductor imports by $2.4 billion. Computer accessory imports, however, decreased by $1.6 billion.
Industrial categories contributed more to the deficit’s expansion. Crude oil imports rose by $3.3 billion in August, and non-monetary gold imports increased by $3.1 billion.
The U.S. surplus in service imports stayed relatively flat in August, according to the Commerce Department data.