Trade Deficit Shows Energy Still Top Problem

The Trade Balance, a.k.a. the trade deficit, for June has just come out at $27.01 billion, from a revised $25.97 billion.  This comes in versus consensus estimates from economists at $28.7 billion.  The exports were listed as $125.78 billion and the imports came in at $152.79 billion.  This number being smaller than expected may hinge on oil imports being the wild card.  These recent deficit levels still sound high, but all in all they are the lowest adjusted figures of this decade.

It looks like the crude imports were $16.59 billion from a level of about $13.4 billion in May.  All energy-related imports came to $22.42 billion, up from $17.7 billion in May.

The good news is that this energy deficit spending is far less than what it was under the hayday when the Pickens Plan was started.  The bad news is that this is only because prices are so much lower than last summer when oil was trading as though it was running out.

The the U.S. deficit in trade with China widened to $18.43 billion from $17.48 billion in May.

You won’t get rid of dealing with China.  You also won’t get rid of dealing with dependence on foreign energy.  But add the two up, and this makes up more than the whole trade deficit.

We won’t go as far as to say a new metric could be “The Trade Deficit on an ex-China and ex-Energy”… but some might.  If we could use those two metrics on a pro-forma basis like tech stocks do with earnings we might even be able to say the U.S. is running at a trade surplus.

JON C. OGG
AUGUST 12, 2009