The United States reported $28.050 billion in advanced-technology product exports for April 2021, but that figure includes $974 million that the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis explicitly identify as an overstatement. A footnote in their June 8 release attributes the excess to the way certain aircraft-related export classifications are combined to protect confidential information. [T3]

The same table reports $43.196 billion of advanced-technology product imports and a $15.146 billion deficit for April. Those are the published figures, with the export overstatement still included. [T3]

The amount was not constant from month to month. In the previous release, dated May 4, the agencies disclosed a $448 million export overstatement for March. The June table puts March exports at $29.399 billion, implying a $1.349 billion decline in the published total for April. Subtracting each month’s disclosed overstatement instead gives $28.951 billion for March and $27.076 billion for April—a $1.875 billion difference. That is arithmetic using the releases’ own figures, not a new official adjusted series. [T3][T4]

“Advanced technology” here describes products, not whole companies. The release’s explanatory notes identify about 500 of some 22,000 Schedule B and Harmonized Tariff Schedule commodity codes as advanced technology. Qualifying codes contain leading-edge products in a recognized technology field, and those products must represent a significant share of the items covered by the code. This product-based merchandise measure differs from industry classifications that include all goods made by an industry, regardless of their technology content. It does not measure all sales by technology companies or include services in the product total. [T3]

The advanced-technology table is explicitly not seasonally adjusted, and the agencies say these data are unavailable on a balance-of-payments basis. Subtracting the confidentiality overstatement does not perform a seasonal adjustment. The $1.875 billion difference is an unadjusted dollar comparison, not a measure of how much technology demand weakened. [T3][T4]

Source documents

  1. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, April 2021 (CB 21-84, BEA 21-24)https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/trad0421.pdf
  2. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, March 2021 (CB 21-67, BEA 21-20)https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/trad0321.pdf