Don’t blame imports for the fall in America’s GDP

It is a tenet of Donald Trump’s economic philosophy that trade deficits are bad for growth. It can also seem like a cornerstone of GDP releases. On April 30th the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that America’s economy shrank at an annual pace of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, the first such decline in three years. This, the bureau said, “primarily reflected an increase in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP”. Mr Trump, apparently embarrassed by the contraction, blamed a “Biden overhang”. But though it was a bad day for him, it was a good one for Trumponomics, as headlines spread the message that imports are an economic drag.