US Trade Deficit Explodes To Record High In March

The US trade balance with the rest of the world collapsed to its largest deficit ever in March.

• Imports rose 10.3% in March to $351.52b from $318.62b in Feb.

• Exports rose 5.6% in March to $241.72b from $228.82b in Feb.

The gap in goods and services trade grew 22.3% to $109.8 billion, Commerce Department data showed Wednesday (this was even worse than the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists which called for a $107.1 billion deficit).

Source: Bloomberg

Ex-Petroleum products, it was even worse…

Obviously this is backward-looking and represents one of the key drivers of Q1’s negative GDP print (net exports subtracted 3.2 percentage points from GDP, government figures showed last week).

Also of note is that the figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Finally, we point out that Russia’s trade surplus with US surged to 11 year highs as imports rose and exports tumbled

Which may help explain the surge in the Ruble.