Awani International takes a snapshot of U.S.' March 2025 trade data where the country recorded its largest-ever trade deficit in March, reaching a staggering $140.5 billion.
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00:00We start Awani International tonight by taking a snapshot of the US trade data released earlier today.
00:07In March, the United States recorded its largest ever trade deficit, a staggering 140.5 billion US dollars.
00:15The term trade deficit refers to how one country imported more than it exported.
00:19Now, in the case of US, there is a 14% jump from the previous month,
00:24which means that this trade deficit was 14% bigger than the trade deficit in February.
00:31Driving this surge, record-breaking imports, reaching 419 billion US dollars.
00:37Meanwhile, exports barely moved, rising just about 0.2%.
00:41Now, with tariffs on Chinese goods climbing to an eye-watering 145%,
00:46US businesses turned up everywhere.
00:49Mexico, Vietnam, and Europe.
00:52Hoarding goods before even more tariffs kicked in.
00:55Now, we take a look at imports from China, plunged to a 5-year low.
01:00Now, you can take a look at the data here, compare for the past 5 years, and you can see a trend.
01:05Right here, it's 2020, where it's the lowest, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
01:12Now, you see, while the US trade gap with China shrank, but the total deficit widened.
01:18Why?
01:19America didn't buy less overall, it just bought from other places.
01:22You can look over here, where it bought from other countries.
01:26And I've said earlier that US businesses turned everywhere else.
01:30Mexico, over here, you can see, increased to 48 billion.
01:34Ireland, you can see over here as well, due to pharmaceuticals, also increased.
01:39Now, Vietnam is one of our neighbours here in ASEAN.
01:42And despite being slapped, with a 46% tariff, there is an increase.
01:47Now, the chaos is shaking confidence.
01:49Investors are pulling out of the US dollar, pouring money into gold and silver.
01:54A capital flight of over 92 billion US dollars since December.
01:59And the bottom line, the trade gap knocked a historic 4.8 percentage points of US GDP,
02:06pushing the economy into its first contraction since 2022.
02:10Now, as America scrambles to reshape trade, Asia must read the signals.
02:14The global map is shifting.
02:16And countries like Malaysia could either seize new opportunities or get caught in the crossfire.