U.S. Import and Export Prices Rise in December

The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a report on export and import prices for October because of the government shutdown, and BLS was unable to construct statistics for October. Therefore, the charts here have a gap for October between the September and the November and December values.

Import prices rose 0.1% m/m (unchanged y/y) in December from November, in line with the expectations of the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Since there was no value for October value, a monthly change for November could not be calculated. Import prices fell 0.1% y/y in November. Export prices rose 0.3% m/m in December. Again, a monthly change for November could not be calculated. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a 0.1% monthly increase in December. The y/y reading fell to 3.1% in December from 3.2% in November.

Note that these indexes are not directly affected by tariffs because they measure the price of goods before taxes. Tariffs are considered taxes and thus are excluded from these calculations.

For imports, a 3.3% monthly decline in prices of imported petroleum and petroleum products restrained the rise in overall prices. Prices of nonpetroleum imports rose 0.4% m/m (1.0% y/y). Prices of imported food increased 0.5% m/m while prices of imported industrial supplies rose 0.4% m/m even with a 0.8% monthly decline in prices of fuels and lubricants. Prices of the remaining end-use categories were little changed in December. Given the recent weakness of the foreign exchange value of the dollar, there could be further upward pressure on nonpetroleum import prices in coming months.

For exports, prices of agricultural products 0.2% m/m (2.1% y/y) in December following a 0.9% m/m jump in November. Prices of nonagricultural exports increased 0.3% m/m in December. A monthly change could not be calculated for November. The y/y rate slowed to 3.1% in December from 3.3%. Exported food prices rose 0.4% m/m, down from a 1.1% monthly jump in November. Prices of exported industrial supplies also increased 0.4% m/m in December. Prices of exported consumer goods excluding autos jumped 0.8% m/m in December, their largest monthly increase since January 2023.

These import and export price series are not seasonally adjusted; they can be found in Haver’s USECON database. Detailed figures are available in the USINT database. The expectations figure from the Action Economics Forecast Survey is in the AS1REPNA database.