Posted on 02/06/2019 10:55:05 AM PST by Red Badger
The U.S. trade deficit fell to $49.3 billion in November, the first decline after five straight months of increases. But on a year-over-year basis, the gap rose by 10.4 percent.
The U.S trade deficit with its global partners fell in November for the first time after five straight months of increases as the shortfall with China and several other countries declined.
Tightening the balance between imports and exports has been a major goal of the Trump administration, which last year started levying tariffs in an effort to close the gap.
A release from the government Wednesday showed the gap had closed in November, the most recent month for which data was available, to $49.3 billion from $55.7 billion in October, representing an 11.5 percent decline. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a deficit of $54.3 billion.
The decline was largely due to a slide in imports, which fell 2.9 percent to $259.2 billion. Exports edged lower to $209.9 billion, a 0.6 percent drop.
In all, the year-to-date goods and services deficit increased by $51.9 billion, a 10.4 percent rise from the same period in 2017. Exports rose $157.1 billion or 7.3 percent, while imports gained $208.9 billion or 7.9 percent.
On a broader level, the drop in the trade deficit will serve as a boost to fourth-quarter GDP, which is expected to show a 2.5 percent increase, according to CNBC's Rapid Update tracker as well as the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow measure.
How the trade tensions play out over a longer period, though, is unknown as the U.S-China talks continue ahead of a March 2 deadline for imposition of another round of tariffs.
"America's trade fight with the world has finally started to slow global trade and only time will tell whether this is a good thing for the economy in the long run," Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG, said in anote.
Among individual countries, the gap with China closed $2.8 billion to $35.4 billion.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC in an interview Wednesday that trade talks have been "very productive."
WATCH: Mnuchin says progress has been made with China on key trade points
unexpected
Ain’t it amazing how things happen when you make an effort to do things for the country....which TOTALLY leaves out the DemocRATS.
They are USELESS. The SOTU address PROVED that.
They was punked!....................
Most of the surge of the last 5 months of gains came from entities trying to accelerate their trades in anticipation of the big hammer falling.
The hammer is beginning to fall.
These were the November statistics. It shows how sharply things are already turning.
Not really.
Ì you look at US exports to China during the month, they were terrible. Way, way down from last year, as they have been DECREASING since June.
Almost a straight line down. They are (way) behind last year.
Chinese exports to America were down month to month. To where they were last year. Year on year they are WAY up, in fact our yearly trade deficit with China last month set a new all-time record high, despite the fact that December’s data isn’t even included yet.
Here is the data:
https://census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html
New #’s in...now a record high trade deficit:
http://fortune.com/2019/03/06/us-trade-deficit-record-high/
https://www.bea.gov/news/2019/us-international-trade-goods-and-services-december-2018
Need the “tariff effect” to kick in soon before we lose billions more in subsidies and increased prices.
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