(Reuters) -New orders for U.S.-manufactured goods fell in June as commercial aircraft orders plunged, reversing the surge in plane orders that had driven the overall upswing in orders in the prior month.
Factory orders tumbled 4.8% after an upwardly revised 8.3% increase in May, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Monday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders would decline 4.8% after a previously reported 8.2% jump in May. Orders were up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis in June.
Manufacturing, which accounts for 10.2% of the economy, remains constrained by President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imported goods. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Friday showed its measure of U.S. factory activity skidded to a nine-month low in July.
Trump sees the tariffs as a tool to raise revenue to offset his promised tax cuts and to revive a long-declining industrial base, a feat that economists argued was impossible in the short term because of labor shortages and other structural issues.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Paul Simao)
