This past May, the U.S. trade deficit widened revealing that businesses were having trouble making sales to overseas customers.
Commerce Department figures show that the gap grew 2.9 percent to $41.9 billion from the prior month’s revised $40.7 billion. Domestic crude production further reduced America’s imported fuel bill, which dropped in May to the lowest level since February 2002.
“The U.S. economy is doing better than the global economy,” said Gus Faucher, vice president at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in Pittsburgh, whose projection for a $42 billion deficit tied for the closest in the Bloomberg survey. “Trade is going to be a drag, but the domestic economy is strong enough that the U.S. economy will continue to grow at an above-trend pace.”
The decrease in exports was limited by a pickup in U.S. sales of oil products and chemicals. Excluding petroleum, the deficit widened 6.5 percent in May. Imports were little changed at $230.5 billion in May from $230.8 billion in the prior month as American companies bought less crude oil, chemicals and capital goods, including drilling equipment.