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Peter Aitken is a Newsweek Politics Editor based in New York. His focus is domestic U.S. politics, but he has experience covering Foreign Affairs, Business and Technology. Peter joined Newsweek in 2024 from Fox News Digital and had previously freelanced at Business Insider. He has interviewed such notable figures as Benjamin Netanyahu, Gen. David H. Petraeus, British Foreign Ministers James Cleverly and Grant Shapps and a ranking member of the Taliban. He graduated from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, but is New York born and raised. You can get in touch with Peter by emailing [email protected]. Languages: English.

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The Commerce Department's Census Bureau on Thursday reported that the international trade in goods increased by about 11 percent in May as exports decreased while imports remained relatively unchanged.

Newsweek reached out to the White House by email on Thursday morning for comment.

The bureau reported a gap of around $96.6 billion, up 11.1 percent compared to the $87 billion reported in April. Exports for May dropped to $179.2 billion, dropping about five percent (or $9.7 billion) from April, while imports were about $0.1 billion less at around $275.8 billion.

This accompanied off-setting changes in wholesale and retail inventories, which saw the former decrease by .3 percent while the later increased at the same rate: In real dollars, that translated to end-of-month Advanced Wholesale Inventories of $905.4 billion and Advanced Retail inventories of around $806.6 billion. Both were up compared to the same month one year earlier.

One theory is that imports increased as businesses tried to pull in more goods before the tariffs took effect.

This is a breaking story. Updates will follow.

Shipping containers are stacked on container ships at the Port of Los Angeles on June 25, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images