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(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China set a record through April, hitting $119,050,900,000 for the first four months of 2018, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.
From January through April, the Census Bureau reports, the United States exported $42,291,500,000 in goods to China while importing $161,342,400,000.
In other words, when measured by dollar value, the United States bought about 3.8 times as much in goods from China as China bought from the United States.
Prior to this year, the record for the highest trade deficit with China in the first four months of the year came in 2015, when it hit $115,320,000,000 in constant April 2018 dollars (adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
The Census Bureau has posted online the month-by-month U.S.-China trade data going back to 1985.
In all 34 years from 1985 through 2018, the U.S. has run a merchandise trade deficit with China in the January through April period.
The last time the U.S. ran a merchandise trade surplus with China in any given month, according to the Census Bureau data, was in April 1986, when the U.S. ran a $54,000,000 trade surplus with China.
In every month since then, the U.S. has run a merchandise trade deficit with China.
In 1985, the first year for which the Census Bureau has posted the data online, the U.S. ran a January-through-April merchandise trade deficit with China of $240,000,000 (in constant April 2018 dollars). The $119,050,900,000 U.S.-China merchandise trade deficit in January through April of this year is 496 times that amount.
In January through April of 2017, the U.S. ran a $109,120,000,000 merchandise trade deficit with China (in constant April 2018 dollars).
Through all of 2017, the U.S. ran a merchandise trade deficit with China of $375,576,400,000 (in 2017 dollars). This resulted from the U.S. importing $505,470,000,000 in goods from China, while exporting only $129,893,600,000.
In 2017, according to the Census Bureau, the top products the U.S. imported from China (by dollar value) were cell phones and other household goods ($70,359,818,000); computers ($45,515,206,000); telecommunications equipment ($33,490,521,000); computer accessories ($31,648,577,000); toys, games and sporting goods ($26,751,412,000); apparel, textiles, nonwool or cotton ($24,137,388,000); furniture, household goods ($20,669,126,000); other parts and accessories of vehicles ($14,406,417,000); household appliances ($14,138,581,000); and electric apparatus ($14,080,858,000).
The top products the U.S. exported to China in 2017, according to the Census Bureau, were civilian aircraft, engines, equipment and parts ($16,264,533,000); soybeans ($12,258,835,000); passenger cars, new and used ($10,211,268,000); semiconductors ($6,076,509,000); industrial machines, other ($5,447,303,000); crude oil ($4,400,921,000); plastic materials ($4,002,797,000); medicinal equipment ($3,453,343,000); pulpwood and woodpulp ($3,359,165,000); and logs and lumber ($3,177,402,000).
