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WorldCity President Ken Roberts
A first in a year: 4 countries, 4 Customs districts show trade gains
The long, painful decline in U.S. trade has abated, according to WorldCity analysis of U.S. Census data released today (Jan. 12).
China, Mexico, Taiwan and the United Kingdom are the first Top 10 U.S. trade partners to register increased trade with the United States in a year.
The last Top 10 country to register an increase in monthly trade, when compared to the same month in the previous year, was France in December 2008.
Similarly, four Top 10 Customs districts registered their first month-over-month increases since December as well: Laredo, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco. (Click here to read story.)
In the intervening months, U.S. trade with the world fell at the most precipitous rate in at least two decades — the so-called “modern era” of international trade, coinciding with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of China — and perhaps ever.
The Top 10 U.S. trade partners account for almost two-thirds of all U.S. trade.
Overall, U.S. trade remains depressed, but only fell a scant 2.86 percent in November, when compared to the previous November. In October, the previous best performance of the year, import-export trade fell 16.92 percent.
No. 1 U.S. trade partner Canada saw its trade with the United States fall 7.38 percent in November, but that was the first month of the year where the decrease was in single digits. Seven of 11 months in 2009, Canada’s U.S. trade fell more than 30 percent, including one month when it surpassed a 40 percent decrease.
Of the four nations within increased trade, No. 9 Taiwan registered the biggest percentage increase, at 12.34 percent, followed by No. 6 United Kingdom at 7.75 percent, No. 3 Mexico at 4.28 percent and No. 2 China at 4.28 percent.
After 12 months with only falling trade among the nation’s top trade partners, the impact is clear in cumulative, year-to-date statistics.
U.S. trade fell $794.85 billion, or 25.12 percent in the first 11 months of 2009, to $2.37 trillion, slightly higher than the total reached in the first 11 months of 2005 and conisiderably lower than the three years that followed.
Total exports through the first 11 months of 2009 totaled $957.74 billion, falling shy of $1 trillion through November for the first time since 2006. Total U.S. imports totaled $1.41 trillion, the lowest total since November of 2004. The U.S. trade deficit, which totaled $454.5 billion, is on track to be the lowest in seven years when annual trade data is released on Feb. 10.
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