The U.S. trade deficit narrowed by 3.8 percent in January to $59.1 billion as the country’s exports surged to an all-time high, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. The Department of Commerce announced that total January exports of $126.7 billion and imports of $185.8 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $59.1 billion, compared with $61.5 billion in December. The monthly exports figure also surged ahead as in January the total export value was around $1.4 billion more than December exports of $125.3 billion. The latest report on export also market the fact that it is the fourth narrowing of the deficit in the past five months and it obviously provides some cushion for the assumption that the trade gap is stabilizing. However, the narrowing of the trade deficit was larger than the consensus forecast of Wall Street economists. At the Wall Street experts were speculating a deficit of $60.4 billion. The report suggests that exports rose while imports declined slightly in January. The report has also suggested that the trade imbalance with the European Union fell to its lowest level in past three years, following the weak dollar and the strong euro, which makes US exporters more competitive and European products very expensive to American shoppers. The improvement came despite the fact that the politically sensitive deficit with China shot up by 12 percent. The U.S. trade deficit with China continued to widen to $21.3 billion in compared with $17.9 billion in the same month last year. However, the improving trade deficit will not only help improving outlook for the US economy but could boost first quarter gross domestic product as well.