Trade Deficit Improves 3.4% as China Deficit Hits Best Level in 23 Months. Now Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods. There's more to come and Trump isn't backing down. On brighter news, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services for February was $49.4 billion, an improvement of 3.4 percent over the January figure of $51.1 billion, providing more evidence that tariffs are reducing the U.S. deficit. That’s according to figures published by the Department of Commerce. Equally significant, our goods deficit with China came in at $24.8 billion, nearly $10 billion or 28.1 percent better than January’s $34.5 billion, and our best monthly China deficit figure since March 2017. The China deficit in February tends to be smaller due to the Chinese New Year holiday, but the figures still provide evidence that tariffs are reducing our imports from China.