August 2018 U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes — 2018-09-14

U.S. import prices declined 0.6 percent in August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, following a 0.1-percent decrease the previous month. Falling prices for both fuel and nonfuel imports contributed to the August decline. Prices for U.S. exports edged down 0.1 percent, after decreasing 0.5 percent in July. Import prices declined 0.6 percent in August, the largest monthly drop since the index fell 1.3 percent in January 2016. The August decrease followed a 0.1-percent decline in July and was only the third monthly drop over the past 12 months. Prices for U.S. imports advanced 3.7 percent from August 2017 to August 2018 and have not recorded a 12-month decline since October 2016. (See table 1.) New Locality of Destination export price indexes are available in table 8 and new Terms of Trade indexes by locality are available in table 9. For more information on the new index series, please see page 5.