Trade Balance
Trade Balance: Goods and Services, Balance of Payments Basis
The number, plainly.
U.S. exports of goods and services minus imports, monthly. It has been negative for decades.
Higher, lower, and what each means.
A widening deficit means imports are outrunning exports; a narrowing one means the reverse, often because imports fell. Tariffs, the dollar and demand all show up here.
A reading is not a verdict. The Scan phase of Woodring’s Loop collects the signal; the Story phase asks what futures it is consistent with, and only the Stake phase turns that into a decision. This page does the first part.
The line in your 2027 plan.
Tests: the trade-policy assumption, and whether the import-cost line survives the year's tariff decisions.
Write the assumption down, name the reading that would break it, and put a date on when it has to be argued again. That is the 18-Month Sunset applied to one line of a budget. The Last Annual Planshows what this season’s moves have already done to the common ones.
The last 36 readings.
Most recent first. Every value is as published by FRED at the time of the last refresh; FRED revises some series after the fact.
| Date | Value | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 1, 2026 | −$105.0B | +0.7% |
| Aug 1, 2026 | −$105.7B | −13.9% |
| Jul 1, 2026 | −$92.8B | −30.4% |
| Jun 1, 2026 | −$71.2B | +6.0% |
| May 1, 2026 | −$75.8B | −43.2% |
| Apr 1, 2026 | −$52.9B | +1.4% |
| Mar 1, 2026 | −$53.7B | −2.2% |
| Feb 1, 2026 | −$52.5B | +0.3% |
| Jan 1, 2026 | −$52.7B | +30.8% |
| Dec 1, 2025 | −$76.1B | −19.1% |
| Nov 1, 2025 | −$63.9B | −70.9% |
| Oct 1, 2025 | −$37.4B | +37.1% |
| Sep 1, 2025 | −$59.4B | +0.4% |
| Aug 1, 2025 | −$59.6B | +20.5% |
| Jul 1, 2025 | −$75.1B | −27.9% |
| Jun 1, 2025 | −$58.7B | +12.1% |
| May 1, 2025 | −$66.7B | −10.6% |
| Apr 1, 2025 | −$60.3B | +54.6% |
| Mar 1, 2025 | −$133.0B | −13.6% |
| Feb 1, 2025 | −$117.1B | +6.1% |
| Jan 1, 2025 | −$124.7B | −28.8% |
| Dec 1, 2024 | −$96.8B | −21.4% |
| Nov 1, 2024 | −$79.8B | −5.2% |
| Oct 1, 2024 | −$75.8B | +9.0% |
| Sep 1, 2024 | −$83.3B | −17.1% |
| Aug 1, 2024 | −$71.2B | +7.6% |
| Jul 1, 2024 | −$77.0B | −7.9% |
| Jun 1, 2024 | −$71.3B | −1.5% |
| May 1, 2024 | −$70.3B | +0.8% |
| Apr 1, 2024 | −$70.9B | −14.4% |
| Mar 1, 2024 | −$61.9B | +2.1% |
| Feb 1, 2024 | −$63.3B | +1.1% |
| Jan 1, 2024 | −$63.9B | −4.3% |
| Dec 1, 2023 | −$61.3B | +4.6% |
| Nov 1, 2023 | −$64.3B | −0.2% |
| Oct 1, 2023 | −$64.2B | — |
Also in Trade and the dollar.
When Trade Balance moves, know what it tests.
The monthly Signal Layer covers every series in the library: what moved, which planning assumptions it tests, and what a continuous-planning team does about it. One email a month. Unsubscribe in one click.
Where the number comes from.
Trade Balance: Goods and Services, Balance of Payments Basis (BOPGSTB), retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOPGSTB. Refreshed daily; 120 readings on file from Oct 1, 2016 to Sep 1, 2026.
Predictive Planning Institute, Signal Library: Trade Balance (BOPGSTB). predictiveplanning.com/signals/BOPGSTB. Data via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Value −$105.0B as of Sep 1, 2026.