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The trend will of course reverse.  It will spike the opposite direction for the remainder of Q2.  It wasn't a case of incremental increased spending on imported goods, it was a pull-in from future quarters, which will leave an import deficit in Q2 and Q3.

I'm not sure of much of anything with the economy now there are so many political factors at play.

For the economy in general, sure.

But for the import/export ratio, the trend must reverse.  It was artificially stimulated by customer buy-ahead purchasing behavior to get ahead of the tariffs. For it to continue, the purchasing of imported goods would need to remain at an artificially high level, which it can't and won't, because then customers would be buying at the increased tariff prices they were deliberately avoiding in Q1.

This wasn't net incremental purchasing, it was pull-in behavior from future quarters.  We've already seen substantial drops over the past 2 weeks in purchasing of tariff-impacted goods.

President Donald Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to relax some of his 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.

I am not concerned moving forward.

Q! GDP is already negative, even if pumped up by early imports, it's already negative, to reverse that would mean it goes positive, which I would not expect.

I expect it to get worse, not reverse.

I also expect a sudden rash of tariff reversals from Trump, probably under the guise of "negotiations", which might be nothing at all.

Trump says U.S.-India trade deal is very close

Q! GDP is already negative, even if pumped up by early imports, it's already negative, to reverse that would mean it goes positive, which I would not expect.

I expect it to get worse, not reverse.

I also expect a sudden rash of tariff reversals from Trump, probably under the guise of "negotiations", which might be nothing at all.

Trump says U.S.-India trade deal is very close

The only reason it went negative was because of sudden artificially induced demand stimulus that is no longer present.  Not sure what you're looking at to think it won't reverse now that that artificially induced demand stimulus is no longer present.  The trade balance is already shifting closer to normal in Q2, and in Q3 that is expected to continue.  Overall demand and purchasing will remain low for a while, so it will likely take a few months to clear out the excess inventory currently in the supply chain here in the US, but by the end of Q3 normal demand should resume.

And regardless of where those goods are made, if they're being sold by American companies, then American companies are making the money off the sales.  Distribution channels are currently stuffed.  That means the manufacturing ODMs have been paid, but the brand-name OEMs haven't yet.

Edit-- Oh I think I see what you're saying.  GDP was already negative and the economy was contracting before the tariff-scare?  I hadn't read that but if true, I understand what you're saying.

My biggest concern is that in a battle of patience, China has a much longer rope.

President Trump can blame the current economy as a hangover from President Biden, but eventually there will be no excuses left. He probably has until the midterms to make a case that the tariffs worked or to make a deal with China.

I don't think so anymore. China is under tremendous pressure internally and externally, and there is even some chatter about regime change.