Export Drop Helps Trade Deficit Grow
A drop in exports coupled with a sharp rise in automobile imports widened the United StatesÛª trade deficit last month, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.</br></br>The deficit on merchandise trade rose to $1.64 billion, after seasonal adjustment, from $1.06 billion in August, the department reported.</br></br>U.S. exports fell by 2.1 percent in September to a seasonally adjusted $18.7 billion. They had risen by a healthy 5.7 percent in August, helping to trim the trade deficit for that month to its lowest monthly total for four years.</br></br>Despite worsening in September, the U.S. trade balance still is running at a lower level than last year. For the first nine months of 1980, U.S. trade was $2|>.:97 billion in the red compared vyith a gap of $27.04 billion for the saiflisKmonths in 1979.</br></br>The iQdmmerce Department said it expects'jthis yearÛªs trade deficit to be about $3 billion less than last year's total of(;$37.29 billion, itself an improvement on the record 1978 deficit of $39.56ibillion.