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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Published in | The Wall Street journal Asia |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Newspaper Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Hong Kong
Dow Jones & Company Inc
14.07.2010
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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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%. |
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