The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that the goods and services deficit was $109.8 billion in March, up $20.0 billion from $89.8 billion in February.
US Quarterly Balance of Trade 2022 Q1
Exports, Imports, and Balance
- March exports were $241.7 billion, $12.9 billion more than February exports.
- March imports were $351.5 billion, $32.9 billion more than February imports.
- The March increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $20.4 billion to $128.1 billion and an increase in the services surplus of $0.4 billion to $18.3 billion.
Year-to-Date
- Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit increased $84.8 billion, or 41.5 percent, from the same period in 2021.
- Exports increased $104.5 billion or 17.7 percent.
- Imports increased $189.3 billion or 23.8 percent.
3-Month Rolling Averages
- The average goods and services deficit increased $9.3 billion to $96.3 billion for the three months ending in March.
- Average exports increased $4.5 billion to $231.7 billion in March.
- Average imports increased $13.7 billion to $328.0 billion in March.
- Year-over-year, the average goods and services deficit increased $28.3 billion from the three months ending in March 2021.
This post originated at MishTalk.Com
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Mish
consumption. Think of an open, global economy as having one huge,
aggregated amount of income that must all be consumed, saved or
invested. That means individual countries must adjust to one another. If
trade-surplus countries suppress their own consumption and use their
excess savings to accumulate dollars, trade-deficit countries must
absorb those excess savings to finance their excess consumption or
investment.
Note that as long as the dollar is the reserve currency, America’s trade
deficit can worsen even when we’re not directly in on the trade.
Suppose South Korea runs a surplus with Brazil. By storing its surplus
export revenues in Treasury bonds,
South Korea nudges up the relative value of the dollar against our
competitors’ currencies, and our trade deficit increases, even though
the original transaction had nothing to do with the United States.