State exports drop

California exported $15.4 billion worth of goods in August, a $4.7 billion year-over-year decline, according to Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.

During the same same period, the value of U.S. exports fell by 0.4 percent, to $179.7 billion, Beacon reported in its monthly analysis of state and national exports.

California’s share of the nation’s merchandise export trade was 8.6 percent, compared with nine percent one year ago.

Exports of goods made in California in August fell by 2.5 percent year-over-year, to $9.8 billion. At the same time, California’s shipments abroad of non-manufactured commodities rose by 4.6 percent, to $1.811 billion.

“It could have been worse,” said Jock O’Connell, Beacon’s international trade advisor, in a statement. “A disproportionate share of the products California ships abroad has been subject to disorienting vacillations in U.S. trade policy. What was permissible under export control rules one month may be denied the next.”

Beacon’s report is based on data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division.