U.S. Exports Account For 100% Of Trade Loss, New Data Shows

The decline in monthly U.S. trade was completely concentrated in exports, perhaps a first, according to Census Bureau data released Friday.

What does that mean? That means at least two things.

First, increasingly, the burden of the decline in U.S. trade not just since the onset of the pandemic in the spring but stretching back into the previous summer is being placed on U.S. exporters.

Second, it means importers are confident that Americans, generally led by consumers, were going to resume buying while our export partners had no such confidence.

It’s not a lot of confidence. In October, imports rose a scant 0.04%, when compared to the October of 2019. That’s equal to $86.52 million.

Nevertheless, that’s the first monthly increase in imports in 15 months, since July of 2019, when imports rose a similarly unimpressive 0.82%.

Exports, meanwhile, fell 9.08% in October, when compared to October of 2019. That decrease is equal to $9.91 billion.

Overall U.S. trade was down a mere 2.71% in October. Despite that relatively strong performance and positive trend line, U.S. trade year-to-date remained down 11.15% through October.

On a year-to-date basis, while the rate of decline has continued to fall, it hasn’t changed significantly since April, when U.S. trade first collapse in response to the coronavirus. The peak of the decline was 14.23% through June. In October, that percentage was 11.15%.

As further proof that the decrease in U.S. trade is increasingly being borne by U.S. exporters, outbound shipments are down 14.52% year-to date while imports are off 8.94%.

Consequently, the U.S. trade deficit is increasing, with total exports down $199.09 billion through October and imports off $187.40 billion.

While exports accounted for all of the loss in U.S. trade in October, it is not an aberration but rather an ongoing trend.

Exports bore the brunt in the previous two months as well, September and August, when compared to those same two months in 2019. Exports accounted for more than 60% of the decline in U.S. trade both months, a percentage not breached since June of 2019.

In fact, as recently as November 2019, exports accounted for just 14.40% of the total decline in U.S. trade.

The exports taking the biggest hits year-to-date are oil, down $44.13 billion followed by the nation’s leading export, aircraft and some body parts, down $35.77 billion. Those two alone accounted for 43 percent of the $199.09 billion total decline through October. Add in gasoline and other refined petroleum products, down $21.70 billion, and the total is almost 55%.