The trade deficit in goods and services decreased by $0.2 billion to $40.1 billion in August. A slightly larger increase in exports of $0.4 billion (to $198.5 billion) than imports of $0.2 billion (to $238.6 billion) drove the August decrease. August exports of goods and services, at $198.5 billion, and August exports of goods, at $138.8 billion, were the highest on record.

Today being Manufacturing Day, we have featured exports of manufactured goods by continent in our Graph of the Month. American manufacturing is currently growing twice the rate of GDP, and American companies ship manufactured goods around the world.

Lastly, we want to inform you of our name change. We are no longer the Data Dissemination Branch of the Foreign Trade Division. Our new name is the International Trade Indicator Macro Analysis Branch of the Economic Indicators Division. Our role has not changed and we will continue to be your main point of contact for international trade data. For now, our email address will remain ftd.data.dissemination@census.gov and our phone number will remain 1-800-549-0595, option 4. For more information on the organizational change of the new International Trade Management Division, please check out the latest blog post by Dale Kelly.