Today the BEA announced that the US trade deficit declined to $26 billion in May 2009:
Goods and Services
The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that total May exports of $123.3 billion and imports of $149.3 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $26.0 billion, down from $28.8 billion in April, revised. May exports were $1.9 billon more than April exports of $121.4 billion. May imports were $0.9 billion less than April imports of $150.2 billion.
In May, the goods deficit decreased $2.6 billion from April to $37.3 billion, and the services surplus increased $0.2 billion to $11.4 billion. Exports of goods increased $2.0 billion to $82.1 billion, and imports of goods decreased $0.5 billion to $119.4 billion. Exports of services decreased $0.1 billion to $41.3 billion, and imports of services decreased $0.4 billion to $29.9 billion.
In May, the goods and services deficit decreased $34.6 billion from May 2008. Exports were down $33.3 billion, or 21.3 percent, and imports were down $67.9 billion, or 31.3 percent.
…this is an ongoing and expected continuation of the end of the last Consumption Business Cycle, the End of Consumerism. It is reasonable to assume that Chinese government’s suppressing the value of the Dollar is accelerating this process of declining US trade deficits significantly, as can be seen in this chart:
