December, 11 2025, 02:30pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jimmy Wyderko: jwyderko@economicliberties.us
U.S. Trade Deficit Up, Manufacturing Jobs Down by 49,000, Other Manufacturing Growth Measures Mixed in First Nine Months of 2025
Data Show Gap Between Trump Trade and Manufacturing Goals Versus Outcomes
Rethink Trade today published an infographic webpage compiling trade and manufacturing data that show in the first nine months of his second term, President Trump’s actions on trade have not accomplished his promises to quickly balance trade and revitalize U.S. manufacturing.
Candidate Donald Trump rode the working-class vote back into the White House with promises that tariffs would rebalance U.S. trade and rebuild American manufacturing. His presidential trade policy announcements since, including the April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs, reiterated his goal was boosting American manufacturing and industrial jobs and reducing the U.S. trade deficit.
With delayed U.S. government third quarter trade data just posted, we can report the nine-month 2025 trade data show a significant increase in the U.S. trade deficit compared to the first nine months of 2024. The United States also lost 49,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s return to office. However, other measures of manufacturing activity present a more nuanced picture: In the first half of 2025 it was all in decline, and some measures remain negative, but others—particularly in the third quarter—point to strengthening conditions.
“The nine-month data show outcomes that are the opposite of President Trump’s promises to cut the trade deficit and create more American manufacturing jobs while indicators are mixed regarding the goal of revitalizing American manufacturing,” said Lori Wallach, Director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project. “So far, Trump’s trade deals seem to prioritize the demands of Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and other usual beneficiaries of decades of failed U.S. trade policy instead of fixing the root causes of our huge trade deficit to help American manufacturing workers and firms as he promised.”
Key indicators:
- Manufacturing employment is down 49,000 jobs between February 2025 and September 2025.
- U.S. global goods and services trade deficit was 14%—$95.2 billion—larger in first nine months of 2025 than first nine months of 2024.
- U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods was $131.3 billion higher in first nine months of 2025 than first nine months of 2024.
- U.S. manufacturers’ durable goods shipments were up by $19.3 billion in first nine months of 2025 compared to first nine months of 2024.
- U.S. manufacturers’ nondefense capital goods shipments excluding aircraft were down by $5.7 billion in first nine months of 2025 compared to first nine months of 2024.
- The U.S. manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index issued by the Institute of Supply Management Report on Business has declined since January.
- U.S. construction spending in manufacturing is down $121.2 billion comparing first eight months of 2024 to first eight months of 2025. (The nine-month data is not yet available after a government shutdown delay.)
See the webpage with trade and manufacturing data in full here.
Rethink Trade is a program of the American Economic Liberties Project.
The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America's system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.
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