Washington, Feb 6 (SocialNews.XYZ) The overall US trade deficit surged to a 12-year high in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic weighed on both exports and imports, the Commerce Department said.
The country's trade deficit in goods and services widened by 17.7 per cent to $678.7 billion in 2020, the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, Xinhua news agency quoted the Department as saying in a statement on Friday.
As a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), the trade deficit was 3.2 per cent in 2020, up from 2.7 per cent in 2019.
The data also showed that US exports dropped by 15.7 per cent to $2,131.9 billion in 2020, while imports declined by 9.5 per cent to $2,810.6 billion amid the Covid-19 fallout.
The widening trade deficit came after the Commerce Department reported last month that the US economy contracted 3.5 per cent in 2020, the largest annual decline of the GDP since 1946.
While former President Donald Trump had tried to shrink the US trade deficit by imposing additional tariffs on various imports, economists have argued that the country's persistent deficit with trading partners resulted from its macroeconomic policy.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz