U.S. Trade Deficit Narrows Much More Than Expected In April

(RTTNews) - Largely reflecting a sharp pullback by the value of the imports, the Commerce Department released a report on Thursday showing a substantial decrease in the size of the U.S. trade deficit in the month of April.

The Commerce Department said the U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $61.6 billion in April from a revised $138.3 billion in March.

Economists had expected the trade deficit to shrink to $94.0 billion from the $140.5 billion originally reported for the previous month.

The significantly smaller trade deficit came as the value of imports plummeted by 16.3 percent to $351.0 billion, while the value of exports jumped by 3.0 percent to $289.4 billion.