Trade Gap Widened Last Year
Fueled by record imports in December, the U.S. trade deficit rose to $114.23 billion in 1996, the highest level in eight years, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.</br></br>The trade gap was one of the few blots on a generally sterling U.S. economic performance, combining low unemployment with low inflation, and it shows no sign of going away soon.</br></br>The data released yesterday, which show the deficit widening by 30 percent in December, suggest that imports will outstrip exports by even greater amounts in months to come, analysts said, because the rise in the dollarÛªs value on world currency markets has made U.S. . goods more expensive com- Û¢ pared with foreign-made products.</br></br>ÛÏWeÛªre going to be looking -at another year or two of ; pretty horrendous trade defi- . cits,ÛªÛª said Nariman Behra-vesh, chief international Seo TRADE, C2,CoH i</br></br>Behravesh and other economists stressed, however, that the trade imbalance is much less worrisome than it was in the mid-1980s, when many American industries were reeling amid a flood of cheap, high-quality goods made overseas.