WASHINGTON — The U.S. international trade gap widened to $59.8 billion in December from $50.3 billion, a wider gap than both the $57.2 billion deficit expected by an MNI survey and the $57.9 billion expected by the Bloomberg consensus, data released by the Commerce Department Wednesday morning showed.
The December gap was the largest since October 2008 and the 2018 total gap, at $621.0 billion after $552.3 billion in 2017, was the largest since 2008, at the start of the last recession.
The unadjusted trade gap actually narrowed in December to $73.8 billion from $74.8 billion in November, so seasonal adjustment factors accounted for much of wider headline December gap.
The revised Census goods gap reported Wednesday was slightly wider than the advance estimate of $79.5 billion, coming in at $80.4 billion after $71.4 billion in November. The advance estimate was used to calculate the initial fourth quarter GDP estimate, so a revision to a wider net export gap is possible.
The overall BOP goods gap widened to $81.5 billion from $72.6 billion in November, while the services surplus narrowed to $21.8 billion.
The petroleum gap widened to $1.3 billion in December from $800 million in November, while the nonpetroleum goods gap widened to $79.1 billion from $70.7 billion.
The unadjusted bilateral trade gap with China narrowed to $36.8 billion in December from $37.9 billion in November. At the same time, the gap with the EU remained at $15.1 billion in December, the same as in November, after rounding.
However, the 2018 gaps with both China and the EU were the highest on record.
The gap with Canada widened to in December to $1.4 billion from $700 million in November, while the gap with Mexico widened to $7.7 billion from $6.7 billion.
Exports fell in December, led by a $2.2 billion decline in industrial supplies and a $1.7 billion drop in capital goods.
Imports rose solidly in December, with a $2.7 billion gain in capital goods (particularly computer accessories) and a $2.4 billion gain in consumer goods (led by household appliances).
