Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"This has gone largely unnoticed, but it is a fact. The trade deficit is way down, I think, for a couple of reasons. One, the lower value of the dollar in recent years did at that time make our exports cheaper, our imports more expensive. That works to lower the trade deficit. We're seeing the benefits of that now. Secondly, the recession. The recession means that we're simply buying less of everything, including imports. And I think thirdly, the end of cheap and plentiful finance to provide the money for us to buy those imports. The benefit of this - I think the big benefit - that many economists see is that the U.S. will not have to borrow as much money from overseas to finance our operations here. When we run a trade deficit, we're sending dollars overseas. If we want to access those dollars, we have to borrow them from those foreign owners. If more of those dollars stay here, we can - so to speak - self finance. However, a disadvantage is that this is going to hurt other countries, other countries that are very dependent on world trade . . . countries like Japan, Germany and China. And of course, we're in a world economy now, so to the extent that those countries are hurt, we do feel some of their pain."