In 2011, U.S exports rose by 14.4 percent to a record US$2.1 trillion. That’s the good news. The bad news is that imports also set an all-time high record of US$2.7 trillion, a 13.8 percent increase over 2010. It's really not that hard to realize that the result is a deficit of 0.6 trillion – or US$558 billion, to be exact.
More than half of this trade deficit is with China, a startling US$295.4 billion. Even though U.S. exports to world's most populated country rose by 13.1 percent to US$103.9 billion, it was offset by a 9.4 percent increase to a record US$399.3 billion in imports from China.
The auto industry was amongst those sectors that set new deficit records: last December alone marked an increase of US$1.8 billion in imported vehicles, parts and engines.
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