The overall goods and services deficit number for January looked pretty good – coming in at $54.4 billion, its lowest monthly point in years. But when services are stripped from the equation, the goods trade looks like it has returned to level footing. January’s goods deficit was $81.7 billion, according to Thursday’s trade data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The free trade, foreign policy apparatus on Capitol Hill is openly advocating for the extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with senior committee leaders from both parties coming out in favor of it during a March 3 Center for Strategic and International Studies event about the trade deal’s future.
On Capitol Hill, the defense narrative clearly gets legislators’ attention. It remains the surest way to get Members of Congress thinking about reindustrialization and rebuilding domestic supply chains.
It was no surprise that the 2025 goods deficit broke another record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) numbers showed recently. The year-ending goods deficit was $1.24 trillion, up from $1.21 trillion in 2024, with the monthly deficit for December looking like historic averages, nearly $100 billion. Nothing seems to stop America’s appetite for imports.
The Senate Finance Committee agrees on two things: First, the U.S. Mexico and Canada Agreement (USMCA) isn’t perfect and a number of issues need fixing. Second, they don’t want tariffs.
Zydus Pharmaceuticals, one of India’s largest generic drug makers, recalled over 22,000 bottles of a cholesterol medication on Dec. 30, 2025. AvKare, a Tennessee-based pharmaceuticals distribution company that relies on imports, recalled around 7,900 cartons of Rosuvastatin, a widely used generic statin, a day later.
The November trade deficit numbers returned to a more normal figure, with the services surplus still in the $20s to low $30 billion range, and the goods deficit jumping from the October lull.
Clothes are labeled. Most food is labeled. Even your car has its manufacturing country of origin stamped onto the door panel. Pharmaceuticals on the other hand, one of the biggest import items and certainly one most critical to our daily health safety and security, usually do not come with any labels at all.
Once year-ending 2025 trade data is released in February, we will be looking at another $1 trillion deficit. Assuming the monthly goods deficit for November and December looks like the low October goods deficit of $58.5 billion, the U.S. will record a minimum $1.17 trillion goods gap for 2025, the second largest trade deficit since 2024’s $1.2 trillion barnstormer.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) turns 50 years old this year, and it still has lots to learn. The main disruptor – China – has ultimately added new layers to CFIUS oversight, but this oversight is in its infancy.
