The United States continues to be in a deep hole in goods and services, with a deficit of $70.1 billion in July, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and U.S. Census Bureau.
The deficit was down $3.2 billion from a revised $73.2 billion the previous month, the bureaus stated in a release.
In the release, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and U.S. Census Bureau reported that compared to last year, the goods and services deficit increased by $131 billion, up 37.1% year-over-year.
“The global pandemic and the economic recovery continued to impact international trade in July 2021,” the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis noted in a release. “The full economic effects of the pandemic cannot be quantified in the statistics because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.”
The bureaus also noted in the release that exports hit $212.8 billion in July, up $2.8 billion from the previous month. Imports stood at $282.9 billion, down $0.4 billion from June levels, according to the release.
When compared to the same period last year, the bureaus reported that imports were up $336 billion (21.3%), and exports rose $205 billion (16.8%).
Overall, the exports of goods increased by $2.7 billion in July, according to the bureaus. The total for the month stood at $148.6 billion, the release stated. This included a $1 billion increase in capital goods and a $0.8 billion jump in consumer goods.
The export of services, according to the bureaus, increased to $64.2 billion in July, up $0.1 billion from the previous month.
Data on trade in goods and services is only updated quarterly, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The U.S. deficits increased with India ($24 billion to $24.8 billion) and Canada ($3.6 billion to $96.4 billion), according to second quarter figures. However, the deficit with China fell $8.4 billion to $82.9 billion, according to the release.