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Energy boom helped 2012 balance of trade
Jesse Richman, 2/15/2013

The boom in oil and gas production in the United States led to a modestly lower trade deficit for 2012 according to recently released figures from the BEA.  

Overall, the BEA reports that

"For 2012, exports of $2,195.9 billion and imports of $2,736.3 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $540.4 billion, $19.5 billion less than the 2011 deficit of $559.9 billion."

And digging into the 2012 numbers in more detail it becomes clear that a key reason that the deficit in goods did not increase was a 24.6 billion decrease in imports of industrial supplies and materials.  Much of the decrease is the diminished demand for energy imports thanks to increased domestic production.  

The entire BEA report can be found at http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/tradnewsrelease.htm