Washington-Sana
Official data showed today that the trade balance deficit in the United States increased by 22.7 percent during last December, on an annual basis, due to the increase in imports at a higher rate than exports.
According to data from the US Bureau of Statistics, the trade balance deficit "the difference between service and commodity exports and imports" was about $80.73 billion in December, compared to a deficit of $65.8 billion in the same month of 2020.
On a monthly basis, the US trade deficit increased by 1.8 percent in December 2021 from $79.33 billion in November.
The data indicated that US exports grew by 1.5 percent on a monthly basis to $228.1 billion in December, compared to $224.73 billion in the previous month.
And US imports recorded a monthly increase of 1.6 percent to 308.87 billion dollars, compared to 304.06 billion dollars in November.
In terms of annual performance, the US trade deficit increased by 26.9 percent last year to $859.1 billion, compared to $676.68 billion in 2020.
The rise in the trade balance deficit reflects the trade difficulties around the world with the emergence of the new mutation “Omicron”, which threatens to re-impose restrictions, the continuation of the global supply chain crisis and the decline in demand.
Today, the International Monetary Fund cut the US economic growth forecast by 1.2 percentage points to 4 percent in 2022, in light of expectations of early withdrawal of monetary easing measures and continued supply shortages.
