That OPEC Cut? I'm Not Seeing It -- March 7, 2017

Updates

Later, 10:40 p.m. Central Time: see first comment. To make it goggle-searchable --

All that comes from Tables 7 & 8 of today's report, where there's a couple hundred line items listed: https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/2017/pdf/trad0117.pdf.

This is the point: we should really net out our oil & product imports and exports for the complete picture.

Bill McBride has a monthly chart that does just that:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zrkWtpyEPFg/WL64Xcy8KeI/AAAAAAAAqak/aZ3UkaHqTIMUouhJbySOiyvU_KAN5QAywCLcB/s1600/TradeDeficitJan2017.PNG.

The black graph is the petroleum deficit, red is everything else, and blue is the total. From this, one can see that oil & oil products aren't nearly as big a part of the trade deficit as they were 5 years ago, because as our imports rose, our exports rose even faster.

Original Post

 
The other day I mentioned that with regard to all that talk about OPEC and non-OPEC crude oil cuts, I wasn't seeing it. Now, today, Reuters is reporting that US imports of crude oil have actually increased the US trade deficit to near five-year high. Link here in The Dickinson Press.

The U.S. trade deficit jumped to a near five-year high in January as rising oil prices helped to push up the import bill, pointing to slower economic growth in the first quarter and posing a challenge for the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump took office with a pledge to boost annual economic growth to 4 percent and renegotiate trade deals in favor of the United States. Trump blames U.S. trade policy for the loss of American factory jobs and the import-driven surge in the trade gap could intensify the debate on a cross-border tax.

The article mentions "rising" oil prices and yet, from my perspective, oil is pretty cheap, unless they are comparing today's $50-oil to 2014's $100-oil.

And I guess that's what they are doing. Near the bottom of the article;

The price of imported oil averaged $43.94 per barrel in January, the highest since August 2015. That pushed the value of petroleum imports to a two-year high. Imports of cell phones and other household goods rose $1.0 billion, while those of automobiles hit a record high.

A "five-year" high takes us back to 2012. Between February, 2012, and July, 2014, WTI averaged around $100, starting with $114 in February, 2012.