We expect June’s trade deficit to slip to $73.4bn from $75.1bn, which would be the first narrowing since March. We expect exports to rise by 1.6% after a 0.7% May decline and imports to rise by 0.7% after falling by 0.3% in May.
We expect goods data to be consistent with advance data released on July 24, when exports increased by 2.5% and imports increased by 0.7%, reducing the goods deficit to $97.8bn from $100.2bn.
However we expect improvement in goods to be partially offset by a fall in the services surplus, to $24.4bn from $25.1bn, with exports falling by 0.1% and imports rising by 0.9%. This is consistent with assumptions made with the Q2 GDP report.