The U.S. ‘Goods Only’ Trade Deficit stood at approximately 7.0 trillion at December 31, 2006, and at August 31, 2007 stood at approximately 7.5 trillion. The monthly ‘Goods Only’ Trade Deficit in 2007 to August 31 is set out in the following chart (billions rounded - source U.S. Census Bureau of Economic Analysis, October 11, 2007):

FusionCharts

The U.S. had a ‘Services’ Trade Surplus in each month in 2007 as set out in the following chart (billions rounded - same source):

FusionCharts

These two statistics show neither a material increase or decrease in monthly trends. If these monthly statistics remain constant for the balance of 2007 the U.S. will have experienced a net (i.e. Goods Only less Services) Trade Deficit of approximately $700 billion. While this would be a 9% improvement from the approximate $780 billion 2006 net trade deficit it would represent an approximate 10% increase in the aggregate U.S. Trade Deficit, resulting in increased U.S. debt obligations to its principal trading partners.

We intend to update these charts each month on this Blog. Updates will be made when the U.S. statistics become available, which typically occurs before the 15th of the month.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Economic Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.