balance of trade

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The difference in value between the total exports and total imports of a nation during a specific period of time.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun economics, trade The difference between the monetary value of exports and imports in an economy over a certain period of time.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the difference in value over a period of time of a country's imports and exports of merchandise