U.S. exports on course to pass $1.5 trillion for 2011

U.S. exports will have doubled between 2009 and 2014, meeting President Obama’s five-year goal, if the pace of growth continues at the current rate, according to WorldCity analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau data released Friday.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that U.S. exports have not grown at that rate for three consecutive years all decade, if ever.

In fact, the only other year exports topped 16 percent was 2010, when they were rebounding from a 20 percent decline the previous year. In 2010, exports increased 20.97 percent.

After the unprecedented 17.9 percent drop in 2009, President Obama announced the goal to double U.S. exports in five years, by 2014, as a means to lower the nation’s unemployment rate.  The nation’s exports that year totaled $1.06 trillion, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In the National Export Initiative Report to the President, the total used for 2009 exports is $1.57 trillion. It is not clear if that total includes service exports, which are difficult to accurately track, or why it differs from Census data. The report also suggests the doubling needs to occur by 2015, a six-year span.

Yet through the first 11 months of 2011, the numbers are good and look likely to exceed $1.5 trillion on an annual basis for the first time ever, when the 2011 figures are released Feb. 10.

U.S. imports, meanwhile, topped $2 trillion for the first time at the 11-month mark. Imports are up 15.8 percent from the same period of 2010 and 2.9 percent over the 2008 record total.

The U.S. trade deficit through November 2011 stood at $669.17 billion, an increase over the last two years but well below the totals of 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

New York City remained the nation’s No. 1-ranked Customs district through the first 11 months of 2010. If it ends the year ahead of Los Angeles, it will be the first time it has done so since 2001.

Houston, buoyed by high oil prices, will finish ahead of Detroit, the perennial No. 3.

Canada will remain the nation’s No. 1 trade partner, widening the distance between it and No. 2 China because its 13.74 percent growth rate is greater than that of the Asian manufacturing powerhouse, which was growing at a 10.77 percent rate through November. For most of the previous decade, China had been narrowing the gap.

No. 3 Mexico’s trade with the United States was growing at 17.72 percent.

Overall, trade is a bright spot in the picture of U.S. economic health.

International trade is up for all of the nation’s nearly four dozen Customs districts and all 50 of its top trade-partner nations, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Friday and analyzed by WorldCity.

The top-ranked trade partner to show a decrease in year-over-year trade through November is No. 53 Egypt, which underwent significant economic and political turmoil in 2010. Its trade was down 5.66 percent.