Ahead Of The Bell: Trade Deficit

Lower oil prices also have helped reduce the trade deficit. While prices have been rising in recent weeks, the average price of around $70 per barrel for crude oil is still much lower than the all-time highs approaching $150 per barrel that were hit last summer.

Economists at IHS Global Insight said they expect the trade deficit would widen in April with the increase dominated by rising oil imports, reflecting higher global prices.

The U.S. economy is struggling to emerge from a recession that began in December 2007, and deepened last fall when a severe financial crisis hit the country's banking system.

The International Monetary Fund predicts the global economy will suffer the biggest drop in activity this year since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Because of that weakness, economists do not believe that exports, which had been one of the few bright stops for the U.S. economy, will be able to lead the recovery. Instead, they are looking for consumer spending to pick up, helped by President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program.

The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, contracted at the sharpest rates in a half-century over the last three months of last year and the first quarter of this year. Economists believe that the GDP is contracting in the current quarter, but at a slower rate of around 2 to 3 percent, compared with 5.7 percent in the first quarter.