Nasty surprise for US markets. The US trade deficit grew 15,8% to $48,73 billion in November from $42,06 billion in October (data revised downwards from the previous 42,24 billion). Analysts had instead expected a drop to 41,2 billion, in the wake of the drop in oil prices.
The result is mainly due to theincrease in imports of non-oil goods, which have reached record levels. If black gold is excluded from the count, the figure has reached a five-year high. The US Department of Commerce has made it known.
In general the cheap imports they increased by 3,8%, to 231,28 billion, with increases above all for consumer goods. In particular, purchases of mobile phones have risen by 27% and pharmaceutical products by almost 20%. Crude oil imports fell to $23,68 billion from $25,9 billion in October. The average price of a barrel fell by 2,3 dollars to 97,45 dollars.
The volume of imports also decreased, falling to 243,01 million barrels, from the previous 259,66 million barrels. As for exports, rose just 1 percent to $182,55 billion from $180,81 billion the previous month.
Widening the gaze to relationships with business partners, the deficit with China fell by 1,7% to 28,95 billion dollars (with a drop in exports of 2,1% and imports of 1,8%).
The deficit with Japan instead fell by 11,6%, to 6,19 billion dollars, while that with the Eurozone jumped by almost 20%, the highest since October 2007. The deficit with Canada increased by 73%, to $3 billion.
