WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit fell to the lowest level in 28 months as a falling dollar spurred U.S. exports to an all-time high. The deficit with China jumped to the second highest level on record as imports of toys and other goods surged despite a rash of safety recalls.

The Commerce Department said Friday that the deficit for September dipped by 0.6 percent from the previous month — to $56.5 billion. That was the narrowest trade imbalance since May 2005 and took economists by surprise. They had been forecasting the deficit would rise.

The improvement came from a 1.1 percent jump in U.S. exports, which climbed to a record $140.1 billion. The dollars’ decline against many major currencies has made U.S. goods cheaper and more competitive in foreign markets. For September, sales of American-made cars, computers and farm products including corn, cotton, wheat and soybeans were all up.

source

Of course it isn’t all good news, a cheaper dollar means more tourists and do we really want a bunch of hairy European men squeezing into speedos and cluttering up our beaches? I don’t think so! (sorry I had to pause for a second the thought was making me throw up in my mouth a little bit).

Back Talk has more on this.

Economy

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 8:50 am by Chad and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.