Washington, May 3 (EFE).- The US trade deficit fell to a seasonally adjusted $49 billion in March, down 15 percent from a month earlier and a six-month low, the Department of Commerce reported Thursday.
In March, exports rose 2 percent to a record $208.5 billion, while imports dropped 1.8 percent to $257.5 billion.
The government’s figures closely matched analysts’ expectations and represented the largest one-month decline in the trade deficit in two years.
The trade deficit with China, a country President Donald Trump says has benefited from bad US trade policy, fell 11 percent to $25.9 billion in March.
Trump announced new tariffs in March of up to 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports, and he later granted temporary exemptions to close trade partners, such as Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and the European Union.
During the first quarter of the year, nevertheless, the US trade deficit grew 18 percent from the same period in 2017, with exports rising 6.8 percent and imports increasing 9.1 percent.