What Is a Trade Balance

The trade balance in five lines

The trade balance is what a country sold abroad in a month minus what it bought from abroad, goods and services together. When it sold more than it bought the balance is a surplus; when it bought more, a deficit, and the United States has run a deficit most months for decades, so the number is how big the deficit was. It lands about five weeks after the month it counts, at 8:30 in New York, 15:30 on the feed's clock, and it is read in billions against the forecast. On 3 September 2026 the minute moved the euro against the dollar 15.1 pips, where a pip is the fourth decimal place of the price; on 5 February, 9.4.

A port with two ships

Picture a port at the end of the month. One ship is leaving loaded with what the country sold abroad, its exports, six boxes here; one is arriving with what the country bought, its imports, nine boxes. The balance is boxes out minus boxes in: six minus nine is minus three, a deficit of three boxes for the month. Real boxes are cars, oil, grain, chips, and the services count too, software sold abroad and tourists' hotel bills, which do not travel in a ship but are in the same sum.

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