World News: U.S. trade deficit widened in May

The U.S. trade gap with China expanded to $22.28 billion in May, the largest since October and 15% beyond the previous month's bilateral deficit of $19.31 billion. U.S. imports expanded by $3.13 billion, far outpacing the $162 million gain in exports. The figures are likely to exacerbate pressu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Wall Street journal Asia
Main Authors Talley, Ian, Tom Barkley Dow Jones Newswires
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hong Kong Dow Jones & Company Inc 14.07.2010
Subjects
Crude oil prices
Energy economics
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
International trade
Trade deficit
US exports
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Summary:The U.S. trade gap with China expanded to $22.28 billion in May, the largest since October and 15% beyond the previous month's bilateral deficit of $19.31 billion. U.S. imports expanded by $3.13 billion, far outpacing the $162 million gain in exports. The figures are likely to exacerbate pressure from U.S. lawmakers on the Obama administration to take China to task on its currency policy. Although China last month announced a move to a more flexible exchange rate, lawmakers say the yuan is still artificially low, undermining U.S. competitiveness. Trade, which was one of the pillars of support to the U.S. economy during the recent recession, has turned into weight on growth during the recovery. With imports outpacing export gains, net exports subtracted 0.8 percentage point from U.S. gross domestic product in the first quarter, when the overall economy grew 2.7%.