WASHINGTON—The U.S. trade deficit in goods narrowed sharply in June as exports surged, while business spending on equipment remained strong, reducing the risk that the economy contracted again in the second quarter.
The better-than-expected reports from the Commerce Department on Wednesday left economists scrambling to upgrade their gross domestic product estimates for the last quarter, which had ranged from negative to barely growing. The data were published ahead of the release on Thursday of the advance second-quarter GDP estimate.
A raft of soft housing data as well as weak business and consumer sentiment surveys had raised expectations for a second straight quarterly negative GDP reading, exacerbating worries of a recession….