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Energy

As Oil Prices Get Ugly, Trade Deficit Grows

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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The US trade deficit rose in March, and the price of oil was a significant contributor. Since oil is up substantially since then, figures for April and May should be affected even more profoundly.

The Commerce Department reported that the March trade gap was $27.6 billion compared to a revised $26.1 billion in February.  American exports dropped by 2.4% to $123.6 billion in March. Imports moved down 1.0% to $151.2 billion.

The US brought in more oil in March than in February, 289.7 million barrels compared to 254.9 million. The average price of a barrel of crude moved up  in March rose by 5% to $41.36.

Oil has recently been trading at over $55. Not only will that widened the trade gap in future months, but it is a sign that energy costs are moving up sharply, which will both fuel inflation and eat into discretionary spending by both consumers and businesses.

Slowly but surely, oil is becoming the elephant in the room again.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

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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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