U.S. trade deficit in Feb. near record of US$ 89.2 bil.

미국 2월 무역적자 0.1%↓...여전히 사상 최대 수준

The U.S. trade gap last month has stayed close to the record high seen in February as both exports and imports surged.
Services imports, which rose to an all-time high, pushed up the overall import figure, increasing the deficit.
Kim Sung-min reports.
The U.S. trade deficit in February once again stayed near its record high.
According to the Commerce Department on Tuesday,... the goods and service trade deficit for the world's largest economy came to 89-point-2 billion U.S. dollars in February,.. down just point-1 percent from the historic high recorded the month before.
This,... as both exports and imports shot up to a record high.
In the month of February,... imports of goods and services surged 1-point-3 percent to a record of almost 3-hundred-18 billion U.S. dollars,... whereas exports climbed 1-point-8 percent to around 2-hundred-29 billion dollars.
What largely pushed up the overall import figure was services imports, which rose more than 2 billion to a record of 51-point-6 billion dollars.
About half of the increase came from the biggest monthly increase in charges for use of intellectual property since 2016,... which according to Bloomberg includes things like the rights fees to broadcast the Winter Olympics.
The increase in goods imports follows a surge in industrial materials such as crude oil and chemicals.
In terms of exports, increase in travel as well as petroleum shipments drove the surge but a decrease in capital goods partly offset those increases.

Looking ahead,... Russia's invasion of Ukraine could further put a damper on U.S. export growth while sending commodity prices even higher.
Those higher commodity prices are also likely to lead to higher inflation.
To tame that inflation, the Fed is preparing for rapid rate hikes which will come as early as next month.
The U.S. central bank raised its interest rate in March by 25 basis points to point-5 percent,... the first hike in more than three years. U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said on Tuesday that she expects a combination of an interest rate raise and a balance sheet runoff.
She added that further tightening could follow as needed later this year.
Kim Sung-min, Arirang News.

#trade_deficit #export_and_import #CommerceDepartment

2022-04-06, 12:00 (KST)

[Bk]

The last time the USA had a trade surplus was in 1975. Other countries now own large chunks of the USA.

[angelobkoljenovic]

This is what we have seen for 50 years

[agronusaagronusa]

that is why war is very important. usa needs more oil source and weapon sales.