Washington, DC, January 12--The trade gap in November widened to a new record as demand for foreign oil rose and sales of U.S. goods and services overseas fell for the first time in five months.
The Commerce Department reported that the deficit grew 7.7% to $60.3 billion from an upwardly revised $56.00 billion in October. The October shortfall was previously reported at $55.46 billion.
Economists were expecting the gap to narrow to $53.60 billion.
The trade deficit through November totaled $561.3 billion, far above the previous annual record of $496.5 billion set in 2003, and put the country on track to record a trade imbalance topping $600 billion when the December figures are added.
Some analysts had forecast a pullback in energy prices would push down the value of petroleum imports and contribute to a shrinking of the overall trade gap.
Rising oil prices had helped widen the October deficit to record size. But the average price of a barrel of crude fell just 64 cents to $41.15 from $41.79 while the volume of crude oil imports increased to 326.48 million barrels for the month from 315.81 million. That pushed the value of imported crude to $13.43 billion from $13.20 billion.
In all, the nation bought $17.67 billion of total energy-related petroleum products from international sources in November, down slightly from $17.69 billion the month prior.
Imports overall increased 1.3% to $155.85 billion during November, the Commerce Department said.
