Washington ? The United States registered a record $489.4 billion trade deficit for 2003 as a rebounding U.S. economy strengthened Americans’ appetites for a wide range of foreign-made goods.

The annual trade deficit reported by the Commerce Department on Friday was 17.1 percent larger than the previous record shortfall of $418 billion posted in 2002.

Import growth outpaced export growth last year, thus producing the trade imbalance.

The value of foreign goods and services sold to the United States swelled to an all-time high of $1.5 trillion in 2003, representing an 8.3 percent rise from last year.

U.S. exporters, however, made solid gains last year. Exports totaled $1 trillion — the best showing since 2000 — and a 4.6 percent increase from 2002.

The latest snapshot of trade activity comes amid rising tensions over global trade and concerns about the flight, or outsourcing, of U.S. jobs to other countries. President Bush’s chief economist, Gregory Mankiw, struck a political nerve earlier this week when he described the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas companies as “just a new way of doing international trade.”

Painfully slow job growth in the United States is a political sore spot for the president.

The Bush administration believes the best way to handle the mushrooming trade deficits is to get other countries to remove trade barriers and open their markets to U.S. businesses. But critics point to the deficits as evidence that the president’s free-trade policies aren’t working and are a factor in the loss of U.S. jobs.

The United States’ politically sensitive deficit with China in 2003 was nearly $124 billion, an all-time high. By country, the United States’ trade gap with China was the largest.

America’s manufacturers contend that China is deliberately undervaluing its currency — the yuan — by as much as 40 percent, giving that country a big trade advantage when competing with U.S. companies.