Peter's Blog

Yearly Trade Deficit Approaches $1T

The May trade deficit came in at -$86B. This was another MoM decline but the monthly deficit is still significantly larger than it was at any point before 2022 as shown below. One of the biggest concerns is the Services Surplus contracting by 8.1%.

We Are Hurtling Toward Stagflation

There are a number of signals that the US economy is getting weaker even as inflation gets stronger. In other words, we are hurtling toward stagflation.

Yearly Trade Deficit Sets New Record Despite MoM Decrease

The April trade deficit came in at -$87B. This was the first time in 5 months that a new record had not been set (pink dot below). The Net Goods Deficit remained below -$100B for the fifth straight month. This Trade Deficit comes on the heels of an absolutely massive -$108B Deficit in March. It’s […]

Trade Deficit Explodes 22.3% MoM and 53.8% YoY

The March trade deficit came in at -$110B. This obliterated the February record trade deficit of $90B. As the chart below shows, the trade deficit has set a record in each of the last 4 months. It was creeping upwards from -$80B to -$90B before exploding in the latest month.

GDP Spin Is Orwellian Doublespeak

Despite all the talk about a “strong economy,” nobody was expecting a blistering hot GDP for the first quarter. The consensus was for around a 1% gain. As it turned out, it was even worse than expected. GDP shrank in Q1, contracting by 1.4%. Despite the awful number, the mainstream spun it as a positive. […]

Trailing Twelve-Month Trade Deficit Exceeds $900 Billion

The US continues to run massive trade deficits. Despite the lack of interest in the mainstream, trade deficits matter. And as Peter Schiff said last fall, we can’t just ignore these trade deficits forever. February did not set a new monthly trade deficit record, but it was very close, and it was worse than projected.

Trade Deficit: Another Record Shattered

January saw another record trade deficit. The $89.7 billion deficit shattered the $82 billion record set in December by 9.4%! Before March 2021, the Trade Deficit monthly record had been set in August 2006 at -$68B. This record stood for nearly 15 years! Records are now being broken almost every single month.

Who Cares About the Trade Deficit? We All Should

The trade deficit shattered records in 2021. Things didn’t slow down any as we rolled into 2022. The January trade deficit hit another all-time record high. But nobody really seems to care. We should.

Peter Schiff: The Fed’s Important Admission

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic made an important admission during a CNBC interview. He confessed the Fed wasn’t really going all-in on the inflation fight. That raises a question: how is it going to tame the inflation monster? Peter Schiff talked about this admission during his podcast, along with a head-scratching article about the trade […]

2021 Trade Deficit Shatters Historical Record Set Back in 2006

In December 2021, the US ran up a total trade deficit of -$80.7 billion, just a tick shy of the record -$80.8 billion set in September. The Goods Deficit increased by 3.2% to come in at -$101.4B, eclipsing the -$100B mark for the first time ever. This capped off a year in which the trade […]