The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that in May, Canada's trade deficit with the world decreased to $5.9-billion (Canadian) from a record $7.6-billion (Canadian) in April, providing a brief sense of optimism for exporters. The Globe's Jason Kirby writes in the Decoder column that economists, however, warn against overestimating this improvement, as the drop was largely driven by soaring exports of unwrought gold, silver and platinum. Excluding these metals, Canada's trade deficit actually widened to $10.3-billion (Canadian). "While the headline export number for May shows significant improvement from a grim April, this was mostly driven by volatile gold exports, where non-mineral product exports declined in the month," said Capital Economics economist Alexandra Brown. The distortion has intensified since late 2022, with gold prices doubling to a high of $3,397 (U.S.) an ounce, boosting Canada's gold export value. However, the volume of gold exports increased only by 19 per cent, reaching 376 tonnes in May. As a result Canada's export picture has enjoyed a shinier veneer of smaller trade deficits, and in some cases even trade surpluses, than would have otherwise been the case.