Another new trade gap record was set in August. On the whole, I'd have to say that the rebalancing process was not moving forward this summer. A large number of consumers were feeling the squeeze, but the nation as a whole is consuming more than ever before and debt has been piling up higher. Gross External Debt topped $10 trillion in Q2:
Even with oil prices falling sharply during the month, petroleum products were the biggest reason for the rise:

We imported 343.485 million barrels of crude oil in August, up from 321.576 million barrels in July. Among our top 8 suppliers for crude oil:

54.433 million barrels came from Canada
49.845 million barrels came from Mexico
45.322 million barrels came from Venezuela
44.446 million barrels came from Saudi Arabia
27.901 million barrels came from Nigeria
22.876 million barrels came from Iraq
16.435 million barrels came from Algeria
15.686 million barrels came from Angola

Canada, Mexico and Venezuela are in the Western Hemisphere, so it makes sense that they are the largest suppliers.
Saudi Arabia is the world's largest producer, so that makes sense too.
After that, what do the other four have in common? Perhaps it's just me, but I associate those names with civil war and internal violence. Just a coincidence?

A search for "Angolan Rebels" turned up this:
"Angola, too, has diamond and oil wealth of enormous value, yet a quarter of all Angolan children die before the age of five. Angola’s diamonds and oil were used by rebels and the Government to enrich themselves and to buy arms to fight one another at the expense of an impoverished, brutalised population."

Algerian Rebels turns yields 937,000 results, and Nigerian Rebels yields 2.08 million results.

Given the pattern of violence in US oil trading parters and how the violence doesn't seem to bother US oil companies, one has to wonder if the violence in Iraq is all according to someone's plan.