WASHINGTON: The US trade deficit rose in March as surging oil prices drove up the country's import bill, but the falling dollar appeared give a boost to exports, Commerce Department data showed Wednesday.
The sensitive trade gap with China meanwhile narrowed in the month on a pickup in US exports to the Asian economic superpower.
The US trade deficit rose to $48.2 billion in March, up from $45.4 billion in February.
More than half of a $10.4 billion surge in imports came from oil and oil products, as crude prices shot up on the back of turbulence in oil-producing Arab countries.
A $7.7 billion rise in exports included a strong increase in the US sales abroad of cars, trucks and other automotive industry products.
"The headline is disappointing but only because all the impact of the surge in oil prices hit this month; we expected it to come mostly in April. The core numbers, by contrast, are good," said Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics.
Exports to China, the US's second largest trading partner after oil exporter Canada, also rose faster than imports, though the overall bilateral gap continued to expand.
Based on the January-March quarter, US exports to China were up 23.1 percent from a year earlier, while imports from China rose 18.4 percent.
The three-month US deficit with China rose 16.4 percent, or $8.5 billion, from a year earlier.
US officials have been pressing China to buy more US goods and to allow its currency to rise freely to help even out the trade gap that has helped weaken the US economy.
The US auto sector, rescued from collapse by the government in the 2008-2009 recession, registered a surge in foreign sales, from $10.1 billion in February to $13.0 billion in March. Growth was especially strong in Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
The auto exports were still much smaller than imports, which cost $23.5 billion in March.
Analysts said the widening trade shortfall would hold back US economic growth.
But Nicholas Tenev at Barclays Capital said the overall picture of the data was positive for the US and world economy.
"Although we expect the widening US trade deficit to be a modest drag on domestic growth in an accounting sense over the next few years, we view the ongoing recovery of trade flows as a positive signal of global economic strength," he said.
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