Finance

Home page

Finance

US trade deficit narrows

14 January 2011 07:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed slightly in November as exports grew faster than imports, although the balance with Chinaâ€”a hot-button political issueâ€”worsened, Wall Street Journal reported.

America’s trade gap declined 0.3% to $38.3 billion, compared with October, the Commerce Department said Thursday, fueled in part by increases in U.S. sales of planes and food overseas.

U.S. exports to China hit an all-time high of $9.5 billion in November, an increase of 1.9% from the month before. But the growth in exports doesn’t begin to match U.S. imports from China, which rose 0.9% to $35.12 billion. This pushed the overall U.S. deficit with China up 0.5% to $25.63 billion.

Trade tensions between the two countries have grown in recent months and will likely be a major topic at next week’s meeting of U.S. and Chinese leaders in Washington.

U.S. exports and imports both gained modestly in November, with exports increasing 0.8% to $159.6 billion. Imports rose 0.6% to $198 billion in the same time frame.

A separate report Thursday reflected the job market’s fitful recovery: New claims for jobless benefits jumped last week, the Labor Department said, rising by 35,000 to 445,000. The four-week average for jobless claims, designed to smooth out volatility in the data, also increased, by 5,500 to 416,500.