Anticipating a High Trade Deficit

The Commerce Department today will release its February trade report, and economists expect that the U.S. trade deficit probably hovered close to a record. The international trade shortfall in goods and services is likely to have narrowed to $16.6 billion after widening in January to a record $17 billion, analysts said. For goods and services trade combined, the January shortfall was the largest since the government began compiling that figure monthly starting in January 1992. For goods alone, January’s deficit of $22.3 billion is the largest on record.