U.S. trade deficit shrinks 0.6% in September

WASHINGTON – The nation’s trade deficit shrank to $56.5 billion in September, a decline of 0.6 percent from August’s revised $56.8 billion, according to a report today from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis. Analysts credited the slumping dollar, which helped boost exports to a seventh consecutive monthly record high.
The trade gap’s narrowing defied analyst expectations that the deficit would widen to $58.5 billion from the previously reported $57.6 billion, according to the mean forecast from a Bloomberg News survey of 76 economists.
U.S. goods and services in September totaled $140.1 billion, an increase of 1.1 percent from the month before and 13.6 percent from September 2006, the report said.
U.S. imports of goods and services totaled $9.1 billion, 0.6 percent more than in August and 4.9 percent more than a year ago.
“Instead of being the drag that it has been for the last 15 years, [trade] is finally becoming a net positive,” Brian Fabbri, chief economist at BNP Paribas in New York, told Bloomberg News. “It will revise real GDP growth up.”
The September trade figures showed surpluses with Hong Kong of $1.4 billion; Australia, $1.0 billion; Singapore, $700 million; Egypt, $400 million; and Argentina, $300 million.
Trade deficits were led by the gap with China, $23.8 billion; the OPEC nations, $11.1 billion; the European Union, $6.4 billion; Mexico, $6.3 billion; Japan, $6.2 billion; Canada, $4.9 billion; and Taiwan, $1.3 billion.
Additional information, including the full U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services news release, is available from the U.S. Commerce Departments’ Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis at www.bea.gov.