The numbers: The U.S. trade deficit sank almost 18% in October after a big surge in exports and barely any growth in imports. Traffic jams at domestic ports that have slowed the arrival of foreign-produced goods.
The trade gap shrank to $67.1 billion from a record 81.4 billion in the prior month, the government said Tuesday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a $67 billion deficit.
U.S. exports climbed 8.1% to $223.6 billion
Imports edged up less than 1% to $290.7 billion in October.
Big picture: The steep drop in the October trade gap from a record high just one-month earlier is likely a one-off.
The surge in exports won’t be sustained and persistent delays at U.S. ports in unloading waiting ships have curbed imports. Those problems will eventually clear up.
Throughout the pandemic, the U.S. has been running unusually high deficits. Americans have been buying lots of foreign-made goods amid a strong economic revival, but other countries have been slower to recover and that’s reduced their appetite for American-made goods.
Read: Jekyll-and-Hyde U.S. jobs report not as ugly as it looks
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
and S&P500
SPX,
were set to open higher in Tuesday trades.
