AI boom inflates U.S. goods trade deficit

The merchandise-trade deficit widened in September for a third straight month amid an ongoing surge in imports of capital goods.

The shortfall in goods trade grew 2.1% from the prior month to $134.9 billion, the largest since March 2025, Commerce Department data showed Wednesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists was for a narrowing to $130.2 billion. The figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

The value of merchandise imports rose 2.4%, while exports advanced 2.6%. Imports of capital goods — a category that includes the computers and accessories, semiconductors and telecommunications equipment fueling the AI buildout — jumped 7.5% to a new record.

Wednesday’s figures suggest capital goods imports continued to weigh on the trade balance in September amid a rush to outfit data centers with components produced abroad. The category has been the primary driver of the sharp deterioration in the deficit over the last year as the AI investment boom has picked up in pace.

“So much of the hardware that the tech companies need is coming from overseas, driving a massive widening in the trade gap,” Stephen Stanley, the chief U.S. economist at Santander Capital Markets, said in a note.

The deficit in capital goods is now $54.3 billion larger versus a year ago, accounting for more than the entire widening in the overall deficit over that period. Imports of consumer goods rose 3.1% in September — the most in four months — but remained 12% lower from a year earlier.

On the export side, the value of outbound shipments of consumer goods advanced 6.5%, while food, feeds and beverages shipments jumped 12.8%. Those gains were partly offset by a decline in exports of industrial supplies — a category which includes petroleum products and volatile nonmonetary gold trade — which fell 1.6%.

Meanwhile, figures on retail inventories, released alongside the goods trade data, rose 0.3%. Wholesale inventories increased 0.6%.

The trade and inventories data will help inform the government’s estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product. Prior to the latest merchandise trade figures, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model saw net exports reducing GDP growth by 2.86 percentage points. In the second quarter, they subtracted 1.10 percentage points from GDP.

“The massive drag on GDP growth from net trade in Q3 likely will be partly offset by a very big jump in equipment investment, and particularly computer equipment investment,” Oliver Allen, a senior U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a note. “At least some of the import surge also likely will show up in inventories. That latest data, however, suggests that this offset will be modest.”

More complete monthly trade figures that include the balance on the services account and inflation-adjusted numbers on merchandise trade are due Nov. 4. Separate data published earlier this month showed September saw a 1.1% increase in import prices and a 2.2% rise in export prices.

Fanzeres writes for Bloomberg.