The
Trade Deficit rose in May to $50.23 billion
from $43.66 billion in April.
The rise in the trade deficit is
bad news for the economy, and the level is very dangerous.
For the month it was up 15.0%; worse than the $44.0 billion
consensus expectation. On a year over year basis, the total trade
deficit was up 19.1% from $42.17 billion a year ago.
The trade balance has two major parts: trade in goods and trade
in services. America's problem is always on the goods side; we
actually routinely have a small surplus in services. Relative to
April, the goods deficit rose to $64.88 billion from $58.16
billion. That is a month to month increase of 11.6%. Relative to a
year ago, the goods deficit was up 19.4% from $54.32 billion.
The Service surplus was up slightly from April to $14.66 billion
from $14.53 billion. Relative to a year ago it is up 20.6% from
$12.16 billion. Exports of goods fell by $1.39 billion, or 1.1%,
for the month to $125.15 billion. Relative to a year ago, goods
exports are up 17.3%.
In other words, we are easily on pace to meet Obama's goal of
doubling exports of goods over the next five years. Service exports
on the other hand were up only 0.9% for the month, and were up 9.5%
year over year, which is well short of the pace needed to double
over five years (just under 15%). Total exports fell 0.5% for the
month but are up 15.0% year over year, right on the pace needed to
double over five years.
Doubling exports over five years is all well and good, but not
if we also double our imports over the same time frame. After all
it is net exports that are important to GDP growth, and to
employment. The monthly numbers on the import side were not
encouraging in this regard, as goods imports rose by $5.33 billion,
or 2.9% to $190.03 billion. Relative to a year ago, goods imports
were up by $29.03 billion, or by 18.0%. They are clearly on the
pace needed to more than double over five years. Service imports
were up by $31 million on the month or 0.9%. Total imports rose by
$5.64 billion or 2.6% for the month to $225.09 billion and are up
15.9% year over year.
Given that imports are starting from a higher base, doubling
both imports and exports would mean a substantial increase in the
size of the trade deficit. Put another way, in May we bought from
abroad $1.52 worth of goods for every dollar of goods we sold. That
was up from $1.46 in April and from $1.51 a year ago. Including
services, we imported $1.29, up from $1.25 in April and up from
$1.28 a year ago.
For all of 2010, the total trade deficit was up an astounding
32.8% to $497.82 billion, with the goods deficit up 27.5% to
$646.54 billion. That's somewhat offset by the service sector
surplus rising 12.0% to $147.82 billion. Trade in goods simply
swamps trade in services, even though services are a much larger
part of the overall economy. So far in 2011, the total trade
deficit is up 15.4% from the first five months of 2010. The goods
deficit is up 20.3%, offset by a 17.6% increase in the service
surplus. Year to date our deficit with the rest of the world is
$234.65 billion, up from $203.26 billion in the first five months
of 2010.
All things being equal, it is better to see trade going up than
down. We want to see both exports and imports growing, but given
the massive deficit we are running, we need to have exports rise
dramatically faster than imports, or actually see imports fall.
From a purely nationalistic point of view, rising exports or
falling imports are roughly equivalent in terms of economic growth.
Falling imports though implies economic pain in some other
countries. Thus all else being equal, it would be better if most of
the improvement in the trade deficit came from rising exports
rather than falling imports. A big part of what made the Great
Recession into a global downturn was an absolute collapse in global
trade. This can clearly bee seen in the long term graph of our
imports and exports below (from
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/).
Falling imports and exports are clearly associated with
recessions. In the Great Recession our imports collapsed faster
than our exports, and so we had a very big improvement in the trade
deficit.
![](http://www.zacks.com/images/upload_dir/1310486613.jpg)
Falling imports were just about the only thing keeping the
economy on life support during those dark days. For example, in the
first quarter of 2009 the smaller trade deficit increased growth by
2.64%. If not for that, the economy would have shrunk by 9.0%
instead of by 6.4%. Thus, growing world trade is a good thing, but
not if it comes at the expense of an ever rising U.S. trade
deficit.
In other words, all things else are not equal. Had it
not been for a dramatic improvement in the trade deficit in the
fourth quarter of 2010, GDP growth would have been over -0.2%, not
3.1%. In the first quarter of 2011, the change in net exports was
an insignificant factor, adding just 0.14 points to growth, so
growth would have been 1.7% rather than 1.9%. The lower
contribution from net export improvement more than explains the
slowdown in growth from the fourth quarter to the first
quarter.
Unless we see a dramatic turnaround in June, it seems
pretty clear that net exports will be a drag on growth in the
second quarter. It now looks like the economy will have to be very
lucky to match the 1.9% growth rate of the first quarter. The Fed
will probably have to again ratchet down its growth expectations
for the full year.
The trade deficit is a far more serious economic
problem, particularly in the short to medium term, than is
the budget deficit. The trade deficit is directly responsible for
the increase in the country's indebtedness to the rest of the
world, not the budget deficit. That is not just a matter of
opinion: that is an accounting identity.
Think about it this way: during WWII the Federal Government ran
budget deficits that were FAR larger as a percentage of GDP than we
are running today. But we emerged from the war the biggest net
creditor to the rest of the world. Then the Federal government owed
a lot of money, but it owed it to U.S. citizens, not to foreign
governments. Slowly but surely the trade deficit is bankrupting the
country.
While most of the foreign debt is in T-notes, try thinking of it
as if we were selling off companies instead of T-notes. This
month's trade deficit is the equivalent of the country selling off
DuPont (DD), while last month's deficit was the
equivalent of selling off Colgate-Palmolive (CL).
How long would it take before every major company in the U.S. was
in foreign hands if this keeps up? Put another way, the 2010 trade
deficit has totaled $497.82 billion, which is 64% what all the
firms in the S&P 500 earned, worldwide, in 2010.
The goods deficit has two major parts: our oil addiction and the
Chinese stuff that lines the shelves of Wal-Mart
(WMT). Of the total goods deficit of $64.88 billion, $30.45
billion, or 46.9% is due to our oil addition. Relative to the
overall trade deficit, our oil addiction is 60.6% of the problem.
For all of 2010, we ran a $265.12 billion deficit just from
petroleum. That is equivalent to the combined market
capitalizations of Chevron (CVX), Marathon
Oil (MRO) and Apache Energy (APA).
The second graph (also from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/)
breaks down the deficit into its oil and non oil parts over time.
It shows that the overall trade deficit (blue line) deteriorated
sharply from 1998 to mid 2005 and then remained at just plain awful
levels until the financial meltdown caused world trade to come to a
screeching halt. That caused a major but unfortunately short lived
improvement in the overall deficit. However, the stabilization in
the non-oil deficit started about two years earlier, but that was
offset by the effects of soaring oil prices, which caused the oil
side of the deficit to deteriorate sharply.
![](http://www.zacks.com/images/upload_dir/1310486643.jpg)
The monthly deterioration in the goods deficit came from both
sides. There is a bit of a lag between the oil price futures and
the import prices. The average price for the oil we imported in May
was $108.70 per barrel, up from $103.18 in April and $76.91 in May
of 2010. Given the pull back in oil prices we may get some relief
in June, but more of it is likely to show up in July (at least on a
month to month basis, the year over year numbers are still going to
look ugly). On the oil side, the deficit soared to $30.45 billion
from $26.14 billion in April, and 38.7% above the $21.95 billion
level of a year ago. The non-oil deficit rose by $2.19 billion or
7.0%. Relative to a year ago, the non-oil deficit was up 5.3% or
$1.70 billion.
The oil side should be the low hanging fruit to bring down the
overall trade deficit and thus help spur economic growth. Oil is
primarily (70%) used as a transportation fuel. The technology
exists and is widely used abroad to use natural gas (NG) to power
cars and trucks. There are over 12 million NG vehicles on the road
world wide, but only 1.2% of those are in the U.S. Thanks to the
emerging shale plays, we have ample domestic supplies of natural
gas, and on a per BTU basis, natural gas is selling for the
equivalent of oil at $25.92 per barrel.
We need to get past the chicken and the egg problem of nobody
wanting to buy a Natural gas powered vehicle because there are no
convenient places to refuel, and gas stations reluctance to install
refueling stations for NG powered vehicles since there are not many
of them on the road. Not only would such a move save money for
drivers in the long run (there is an upfront capital cost as
natural gas powered engines are more expensive than regular
gasoline powered engines), but it would substantially reduce our
trade deficit.
Since it is a domestically produced fuel (and most of what we do
import, we import from Canada) there is also a huge national
security argument for moving to using more NG. The dollars we send
abroad to pay for oil imports are simply the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to the overall cost of oil. A substantial portion of
the Pentagon budget is devoted to keeping the oil flowing in the
Middle East and the sea routes open. While I don't think that oil
was the only reason for our being in Iraq, it is clearly a
significant factor.
NG is also a much cleaner fuel and emits far less CO2 than does
gasoline (and almost no other pollutants other than CO2). Thus it
would be a very useful step towards stopping global warming
(although it is important to make sure that methane does not leak
during the drilling process since it is a much more potent
greenhouse gas, molecule for molecule, than is CO2). Doing this,
especially breaking the chicken and the egg problem, will take
federal government leadership. The benefits for the economy
however, would be huge.
It seems inevitable to me that it will eventually happen, and
when it does, it will be a great boon to major natural gas
producers like Chesapeake (CHK) and
Encana (ECA). The timing of it happening is very
uncertain, but the sooner it happens, the better. I don't want to
minimize the cost of doing so, particularly in terms of water
quality. We need to do more research on the chemicals used in
fracking operations to get at the shale gas (starting with getting
rid of the trade secrets provision that allows the firms to hide
exactly what they are putting into the ground and potentially the
groundwater). Strong environmental regulation is needed of the
shale gas operations, but it should be possible to both protect the
environment and get the gas out of the ground. Yes there would
still be an environmental risk, but we need to take some risks, and
the risk of not using the natural gas resource seems greater. It
strikes me as a trade-off worth making.
The best thing that could happen to help on the non oil side of
the trade deficit would be for the dollar to fall (particularly
against the Chinese Yuan, but against other currencies as well).
The decline of the dollar is starting to have a beneficial effect.
The strong dollar not only makes imports cheaper, it makes our
exports less attractive. However, a weak dollar will not do
anything for the oil side of the deficit. There are few
correlations that are stronger in the market over the last few
years than oil prices rising when the dollar falls and vice versa.
Not quite to the relationship between rising bond yields and
falling bond prices, but pretty close.
It is not just a direct effect of, say, our being able to sell
more goods in Japan because the dollar is weak relative to the yen,
but U.S. companies are often in direct competition with Japanese or
European companies in selling to third countries. For example, both
General Electric (GE) and Siemens
(SI) make MRI machines for hospitals. Assuming that they were of
roughly equal quality, then when the Euro rises sharply against the
dollar, GE is going to be able to undercut Siemens for export
orders to China.
By country, we ran some small trade surpluses with Hong Kong,
Singapore and Australia, but we continue to run large deficits with
most of our other trading partners. The biggest deficit by far is
with China, the source of many of the goods on the shelves of
Wal-Mart, Target (TGT) and other big retailers. It
rose this month, to $25.0 billion from $21.6 billion in April. That
is still 49.8% of our overall trade deficit. While China has agreed
to let the Yuan appreciate, so far it has done so at only a glacial
pace. However, higher inflation in China than in the U.S. means
that the real exchange rate is improving somewhat faster than
that.
Our deficit with the European Union rose this month to $8.8
billion, from $7.5 billion. We saw an increase in our trade deficit
with OPEC ($11.3 billion vs. $9.6 billion). Our trade deficit with
Mexico rose to $6.3 billion from $5.5 billion, while the deficit
with Canada (by far our largest trading partner) rose to $2.7
billion from $2.4 billion. Canada is our single largest foreign oil
supplier. The deficit with Japan fell to $2.6 from $3.6 billion.
The decline there is mostly due to the effects of the tsunami, and
frankly I am surprised that the decline was not larger there.
Overall, this was a disappointing report, and worse than
expected. The principal cause was higher oil prices, but we should
get some relief in June and July on that front. The non-oil side
was also discouraging, we really need the dollar to fall further,
but the Euro is sort of the anti-dollar, and it has problems of its
own. Stepping back a bit, the problem is decidedly not on the
export side. Refer back to the first graph and you will see that
the slope of the export line is much steeper than it was in the
previous two economic expansions. The problem is on the import
side, which is rising at an even faster rate.
It is the change in the trade deficit that drives GDP growth,
not the level. As long as the trade deficit shrinks, it will add to
overall growth, even if the level is still awful. A rising trade
deficit shrinks the economy on just about a dollar for dollar
basis. Getting the trade deficit under control has to be one of the
top economic priorities. If we do, economic growth will be much
higher, and we might actually start to see some significant job
creation. With the rise in employment will come higher tax
revenues, which will help bring the budget deficit under control.
To do that we need to do two things, first get our oil addiction
under control. The second is that "King Dollar" is a tyrant and
needs to meet the same fate as Charles I and Louis XVI. Off
with his head!
The Fed seems to understand this, and a weaker dollar is one of
the more important mechanisms through which quantitative easing
will tend to stimulate the real economy (and is the key reason why
we are getting so much criticism about it from the rest of the
world, as a decrease in our trade deficit would mean a
corresponding decrease in they trade surpluses). Given very low
core inflation and staggering unemployment, I wish that the Fed
would embark on QE3, although at this point they might be pushing
on a string.
Fiscal stimulus would be more helpful, but policy is going
strongly in the other direction towards austerity. The U.S. can
simply no longer afford to be the importer of last resort for the
rest of the world. As world wide trade deficits and surpluses have
to sum to zero (barring the opening of major trade routes to Alpha
Centauri), a reduction in the U.S. trade deficit has to mean that
the trade surpluses of other countries has to fall (or other
deficit countries have to run even bigger deficits). Right now
every country in the world is trying to maximize exports and
minimize imports. We have to fight that battle as well, but it is a
fight where we have been getting our butts kicked for decades now.
Continuing to lose the fight could result in near fatal damage to
our economy and way of life. As I said before, the
trade deficit is a far bigger economic problem than the budget
deficit. particularly over the short and medium
term.
The downside of a weaker dollar is that it will tend to push up
inflation. However, at this point, inflation is not a major
problem, particularly core inflation, the non-food and energy part
of inflation. The final graph shows that core inflation (CPI),
which is what the Federal Reserve tends to focus on, is at historic
lows. Even including food and energy prices (red line), year over
year inflation is still below where it has been for the vast
majority of my life. Those that are running around like chickens
with their heads cut off yelling about the "debasement of the
currency" are completely off base.
Let's start worrying about our real problems (we have more than
enough of those), rather than imaginary problems. The trade deficit
is high on the list of our real problems. Solving (or even making
substantial progress) would do wonders in helping to resolve the
most important problem in the economy right now, the 9.0%
unemployment rate. Seriously folks, look at the graph below, and
tell me how anyone could come to the conclusion that right now the
Fed should be more concerned about the inflation side of their
mandate than they are about the full employment side. How can you
take them seriously when they talk on CNBC or on the Sunday morning
talk shows?
![](http://www.zacks.com/images/upload_dir/1310489040.jpg)
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