Trump’s Got a Point: Mexico Trade Edge Over U.S. Is Huge: Chart

(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s trade deficit with the U.S. represents 12 percent of the total imbalance between the Americans and the rest of the world, suggesting that President Donald Trump has a point with his tweet-storm on Thursday. If anything, he understated the deficit: The $60 billion figure he cited is based on how much the U.S. says it imports from and exports to its neighbor. But that latter figure is far greater than what Mexico says it imports. Bloomberg’s trade flow function uses both countries’ reported imports, considered more reliable, and puts the shortfall at $89 billion in 2015, up 73 percent from 2008.

To contact the reporters on this story: Phil Kuntz in New York at pkuntz1@bloomberg.net, Vince Golle in Washington at vgolle@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sophie Caronello at scaronello@bloomberg.net, Brad Skillman at bskillman1@bloomberg.net.