The US Census Bureau and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Thursday that total August exports of $153.9 billion and imports of $200.2 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $46.3 billion, up from $42.6 billion in July.
In August, the goods deficit increased $3.9 billion from July to $59 billion, and the services surplus increased $0.1 billion to $12.6 billion, and exports of goods remained virtually unchanged at $107.7 billion, but imports of goods increased $3.9 billion to $166.7 billion. Exports of services also increased to $46.2 billion, an increase of $0.3 billion from July.
The goods and services deficit increased a total of $15.3 billion from August of last year, and exports were up 18 percent.
Exports of steelmaking materials in August of this year totaled $863 million, up from $821 million in July. This corresponds to a $1,507 million increase from the same time last year. However, exports of iron and steel products decreased by $14 million in August to $518 million, still up $551 million from August 2009.
Imports of iron and steel products surged by $36 million from July of this year-a $30 million increase year-over-year.
Imports of iron and steel mill products fell over 8 percent from $1,452 million in July, to $1,324 in August, still an increase of $4,335 year-on-year, and imports of steelmaking materials dropped 36 percent, but are still up $1,273 million from the same time last year.