The trade deficit in the U.S. widened in February more than anticipated as Americans snapped up foreign-made televisions and computers, illustrating the rebound in economic growth. The gap increased 7.4 percent to $39.7 billion from a revised $37 billion the prior month, the Commerce Department said today in Washington.

So maybe things aren’t looking so good across the Pond as recent reports might suggest: certainly, that’s another month in which the US debt got bigger. And while Obama is quite rightly persuading the Chinese to make their currency more valuable (and thus reduce the level of Chinese good value in the States) what if people find they prefer Asian goods – even if the price is a tad higher than before? Then the US import bill gets bigger still. This is, after all, what happened with Sony products thirty to forty years ago. (In the UK, there is little sign that households and businesses are choosing cheaper domestic goods at the expense of more expensive imported ones.)

Respected Reuters columnist James Pethokoukis wrote yesterday:

‘Certainly the economic consensus is for unemployment to stay above 9 percent. And my own analysis shows a big lag between economic turnaround and public perception.’

As ever, optimists outnumber realists.

Meanwhile, the Beijing government is leaking that it may let the Yuan gain ‘a bit more’ within 12 months as the world’s third-largest economy moves away from its policy of tying the currency to the Dollar. Time will tell what kind of double-edged sword this turns out to be.