US September trade balance corrects August improvement, Canada's balance little changed in Q3
September’s US trade deficit of $84.4bn is the widest since April 2022, rebounding from a 5-month low deficit of $70.8bn in August to keep a deteriorating trend intact. The average of August and September is slightly lower than July’s $78.9bn but the deficit increased in Q3.
Exports fell by 1.2% after a 1.8% August increase while imports rose 3.0% after a 1.0% August decline. Goods saw exports fall by 1.8% compared with an advance estimate of -2.0% while goods imports rose by 4.0% versus and advance estimate of 3.8%.
The services surplus improved to $24.6bn from $24.0bn with exports unchanged, stronger than assumed in the advance Q3 GDP release while imports fell by 0.9%, this consistent with the GDP assumptions.
Canada’s September trade deficit of C$1.26bn is down from August’s $1.47bn deficit only because August was revised from C$1.10bn. The improvement was however more significant in real terms. Exports fell by 0.1% in nominal terms but rose by 1.4% in real terms. Imports fell by 0.4% in nominal terms but were unchanged in real terms.
Q3 saw exports down by 0.2% and imports down by 0.1%, while in real terms exports rose by 0.2% while imports fell by 0.3%. This implies only a modest positive to Q3 GDP with both series close to flat.
