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Economy

Trade Deficit Reduced In October As Exports Rise

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The U.S. trade deficit decreased $2.7 billion $32.9 billion in October as a result of exports growing more than imports.  Exports grew $3.4 billion while imports grew $745 million.  Gains in exports were led by increases in autos, aircraft, industrial machinery, and farm products.  Much of the decline in imports reflects a decline in the price of oil.  Exports of goods and services were worth $136.8 billion, the highest level since November 2008, which was 141.5 billion.  Also, the United States exported a record $6.5 billion to China.  The United States imported $29.5 billion worth of goods from China in October.

U.S. Balance of Trade, October 2007 through October 2009

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Total U.S. Trade, October 2007 through October 2009

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After a considerable decline in U.S. trade deficit between October of 2008 and February of 2009, the deficit began to grow again.  October saw a significant reversal in that trend.  This is likely the impact of the weakness of the dollars, as a weak dollar boosts the appeal of U.S. goods and services abroad.  October also saw a continued increase in the absolute level of trade between the U.S. and its trading partners.  After a massive decline during the height of the financial crisis, total trade has been gradually climbing.  In October total trade increased by $4.2 billion to a level of $306.6 billion.  There is, however, still a nearly $90 billion gap between current levels of trade and pre-crisis levels.

Garrett W. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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