President Trump holds up a chart while speaking during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025. Trump touted the event as “Liberation Day.”
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One year after the Trump Administration coined the term the “dirty 15,” the results are in: The cumulative 2025 trade deficit for the 15 trade partners with which the United States had its largest deficits in 2024 increased $85.26 billion.
That’s despite a variety of efforts, including the IEEPA tariffs, which put about $175 billion into the U.S. Treasury before the Supreme Court ruled most of those tariffs unconstitutional last month.
Those tariffs were launched on April 2, what President Trump called Liberation Day, when he made it clear the United States was not limiting itself to 15 countries and would apply varying tariffs on countries the world over.
The “dirty 15” term had been coined just weeks before by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during an interview on Fox Business, and it caught on.
But the story is not so simple. The results are mixed. I will get to that in a minute.
What’s not mixed is that the overall U.S. deficit with all the world in 2025 set a record at $1.24 trillion, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data I analyzed. But the total increase from 2024 was a smaller amount, $32.54 billion, than the total for just those “dirty 15” at $85.26 billion.
That’s because, excluding those 15 countries, the United States ran a trade surplus of $52.72 billion.
As is true every year, the United States has a surplus with more countries than a deficit. In 2025, the United States has surpluses with 136 trade partners and deficits with 97.
But, oh those deficits. President after president has attempted to corral the U.S. deficit, mostly to little avail.
In 2025, among the dirty 15, the U.S. deficit increased substantially with Taiwan and Vietnam, $73.04 billion and $54.73 billion, respectively.
It also increased for Mexico, Ireland, Taiwan, India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Here’s where the results are mixed: The deficit decreased for seven of the 15 nations with which the United States had its largest deficits in 2024.
The biggest decrease was the U.S. deficit with China, which dropped $94.44 billion from 2024. Since Trump began his trade war with China in his first term, the deficit has fallen from a record $418.23 billion in 2018 to $202.07 billion in 2025, a decrease of 51.68%.
While still the largest U.S. deficit in 2025, the record deficit with China, in 2018, was five times the size of Mexico’s. In 2025, it was 2.62% larger. The U.S. deficit with Mexico was actually larger than the deficit with China for four months last year.
In December, the U.S. deficit with Taiwan was the largest. In January of this year, the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data available, the U.S. deficit with Vietnam was the largest. For two decades, China’s deficit has been the largest, month after month. It has ranked first just four times in the last 12 months.
The U.S. deficit with Taiwan increased rapidly due to the enormous investments of U.S. tech companies in computer hardware for artificial intelligence data centers. The deficit with Vietnam has increased steadily since 2018 as its imports into the United States increased in tandem with decreases in those from China. For example, Vietnam is now the No. 1 source for cell phones and related parts.
The other “dirty 15” countries where the U.S. deficit decreased in size from 2024 to 2025 were Germany, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Switzerland and Italy.
Four of those deficits decreased while overall trade increased, what the Trump administration would likely view as the desired outcome, if not in size then in at least direction. Those were Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Italy.
With Germany, U.S. exports increased 9.69%, with increases in aircraft, LNG and medicines in pill form, while imports fell 2.66%.
With Japan, U.S. exports grew 3.91%, largely due to corn and oil, while imports fell 1.63%, largely due to top-ranked passenger vehicles, which were subject to high tariffs.
With Switzerland, U.S. exports grew 186.29% and imports grew 67.39%. On both the export and import side, the story was gold shipments – the reaction to Trump’s sometimes erratic decisions on tariffs, including on Switzerland.
With Italy, U.S. exports jumped 34.95%, largely due to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, and imports fell 2.52%.
What the last year has showed is that tariffs and other trade barriers can change the mix, but not what many perceive to be a problem. The 2025 numbers show meaningful movement among the “dirty 15,” yet the overall U.S. trade gap still hit a record.