Mark Vitner Trade Quotations

We're just now realizing how badly off the economy was in the second quarter, ... The wider trade gap, along with the weakness we saw in the business inventory numbers that came out this week and weaker construction spending, will probably result in a second-quarter revised GDP number that will be zero or even slightly negative. It will be an eye-opening number, but it's no more worrisome than what we've seen.

Exports are off in virtually every category. I don't see much near-term improvement for the trade deficit. The trade deficit will probably shave about 0.5 percent off of third quarter Gross Domestic Product.

Demand in the U.S. economy is reasonably strong and retailers are probably optimistic about the holiday shopping season so they are starting to order from abroad now. The trade deficit is going to take some time to turn around. It may not happen until next year.

The upward revision results from the slightly lower than previously estimated trade deficit. We've already seen in July data that trade deficit has worsened in the third quarter.

The Miami economy is the strongest it has been in my memory as a professional economist, which goes back 22 years. International trade is booming. Population growth is strong. And all that growth is creating tremendous demand for services.