Going down

The U.S. trade deficit expanded in February for the third month in a row, reaching a record $61 billion, as rising oil prices coupled with America's hunger for foreign goods pushed imports to unprecedented new heights, data released Tuesday showed.
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The Commerce Department reported that even as imports ballooned to $161.5 billion, $2.5 billion more than in January, exports remained virtually flat at $100.5 billion.
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Despite a substantial drop in the value of the dollar against other major currencies, which has made American products more competitive in some overseas markets, exports in February were only 8.8 percent higher than in the same month of 2004, whereas imports expanded by 17 percent.

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"Certainly there was an oil price effect," said Joseph Abate, economist at Lehman Brothers. "But it's not just an oil thing. In real terms, the trade balance continues to deteriorate."

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Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard argued that the drop in the American savings, from about 10 percent of national gross domestic product in the early 1980s to about 1 percent today, was the major culprit for America's dismal trade performance. What is driving the deficit, he argued, is America's propensity to consume beyond its means.

  International Herald Tribune article