The basic story in the May data is that nothing much has changed, other than the oil price.

And that in some sense is good news. 

Export growth continues at a quite nice clip.  Thank you Boeing.   Aircraft exports in May were $0.7b more than in April (updated, initially I said 0.5b -- bad rounding).  And for the year, exports are up $5b – or about $1 b a month on average.   

The oil import bill continues to rise.  Almost all because of higher prices.  The average cost of imported crude was $61.75 in May.    Oil import volume in May were a bit higher than in May last year, but in the broader sense of things, volume growth remains subdued.  For the first five months of 06, overall “energy related petroleum products” import volumes are down 2% (Exhibit 17).

And non-oil imports have basically been flat all year.  May was no exception.  Indeed, non-oil imports in May look to be down every so slightly from earlier in the year.  Non-oil goods and services imports have been around $155b all year.   Non-oil goods imports have been around $127b.   January was higher.  February was lower (Chinese new year).   And May was a bit lower.  I was going to try to add in a graph, but Calculated Risk beat me to it.

On the import side, the US economy has already slowed.   Though that may be, in part, a reaction to the very fast increase in imports in q4.