• Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on the Release of the Annual Trade Deficit Figures

The U.S. trade deficit is on course to top $815 billion. In 2005, we imported $717 billion more in goods than we exported, for a trade deficit of more than $2.09 billion a day. The rising deficit has cost more than 3 million actual and potential U.S. jobs since 1994.

• Exporting America—get the facts.
• Download a fact sheet on the trade deficit (PDF).
• Read what business leaders and major economists say about the trade deficit (PDF).
• Read what American politicians say about the trade deficit (PDF).
• Download a fact sheet on trade and manufacturing jobs (PDF).
• Read an article from the Economic Policy Institute on the effect of the trade deficit on manufacturing job loss.
• Read a Fortune magazine article by Warren Buffet about fixing the trade deficit.
• Find out which companies are sending jobs overseas with Working America’s Job Tracker.
• Read about the new documentary "American Jobs"—now available on DVD—about U.S. workers who have lost their jobs to foreign competition.
• Read a statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on the trade policies that led to the current trade deficit.
• Read about President George W. Bush’s record on shipping jobs overseas (PDF).

• From 1993 to 2004, the United States lost more than 1 million jobs due to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Find this info and more at the AFL-CIO Facts & Stats database.

• Read the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s statements on Outsourcing America and Taking Action to Challenge Communist China’s Unfair Trade Practices, and find other related resolutions and council statements at the AFL-CIO Convention archive.

• On July 12, 2006, the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Business and Industry Council co-sponsored a bipartisan national conference on the U.S. trade deficit. Nationally recognized leaders from business, union and agriculture groups, prominent academic experts and members of Congress addressed America’s massive and dangerous trade deficit. Read more about Trade Summit 2006: Crisis and Opportunity.
• Read the Economic Policy Institute report The High Price of 'Free' Trade.
• Read AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney's speech on global poverty.
• Find more information on the global economy at the AFL-CIO archives.