Official figures show that the US annual trade deficit fell for the first time in six years in 2007, to $711.6 billion from $758.5 billion in 2006.
The drop came as strong exports offset record-high oil prices and a big gap with China. The annual trade gap had climbed to record peaks in the previous five years.
The decline in the US international trade deficit came amid slowing economic growth that reduced demand for imports. The 2007 decline of 6.2% was the biggest decrease since 1991, when the US economy was also slowing down.
In December, the trade deficit fell to $58.8 billion from a revised $63.1 billion in November, the Commerce Department said. This was due to a 1.5% rise in exports to $144.3 billion, and a 1.1% fall in imports to $203.1 billion.
Most of the imports fall came from a sharp drop in car imports, but demand for consumer goods and business capital equipment was also down.
The average price of an imported barrel of oil was up 3.9%, helping produce record total petroleum imports of 36 billion dollars. The rising US oil bill, however, was not enough to overcome the fall of imports in non-petroleum goods.
Most of the increase in exports came from civilian aircraft deliveries, which rose $1.4 billion. Boeing's sales are frequently the single biggest monthly figure in US exports.
The US had record exports to China and the politically sensitive trade deficit with that country fell 21.5% to $18.8 billion in December. But the full-year deficit increased to $256.3 billion from $232.6 billion in 2006.
