US trade gap narrows to $105B as exports climb

America's trade gap got a little smaller in September. The Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Wednesday the deficit fell by $0.7 billion from August, landing at $105 billion. August's figure was revised upward to $105.7 billion.

Exports did the lifting. They climbed 1.9%, a $5.8 billion jump, to $321.5 billion. Imports moved up too, rising 1.2% — a $5.2 billion gain — to $426.6 billion.

Zoom out and the trend looks starker. Over the first nine months of 2026, the cumulative trade deficit shrank 12.2% compared with the same stretch in 2025, a swing of $92.4 billion. Exports rose 11.6%, adding $297.3 billion, while imports grew 65.2%, or $204.9 billion.

So September's improvement is thin — a $0.7 billion edge while both sides of the ledger expanded. The bigger story sits in the year-to-date numbers, where export growth has been outrunning the widening import bill enough to pull the annual gap down.

The report comes from the two agencies that track the country's cross-border goods and services flows, and it lands as a fresh read on how US trade is shaping up with three months of the year still to count.