MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Export boom fueled by cheap dollar narrows US trade deficit

The United States trade deficit narrowed 0.3% last July to 59.2 billion US dollars with record food and car exports helping to offset higher costs of imported crude.

According to the Commerce Department, US imports reached a monthly record of 196.9 billion in July, up by 1.8% from June. Exports increased 2.7% in July to a record 137.7 billion, up for a fifth consecutive month and helped by a weak dollar. Overseas sales of grains, cars, consumer and industrial goods increased steadily while imports are being boosted by the high price of oil which this week climbed to near record levels. In the first seven months of 2007, the US trade deficit reached 414.5 billion US dollars down from 449.8 billion for the same period last year. If the tendency keeps steady in 2007 for the first time in six years the US trade deficit would have dropped.