US Import Prices Accelerate in March on Petroleum

Trucks wait in a queue to cross into the United States near in the Cordova of the Americas International border bridge connecting the city of Ciudad Juarez to El Paso, Texas, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 13, 2022. Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

WASHINGTON—U.S. import prices accelerated by the most in 11 years in March as the crisis in Eastern Europe lifted commodity prices.

Import prices jumped 2.6 percent last month, the largest rise since April 2011, after increasing 1.6 percent in February, the Labor Department said on Thursday. In the 12 months through March, prices raced 12.5 percent, the largest gain since September 2011, after advancing 11.3 percent in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast import prices, which exclude tariffs, increasing 2.3 percent.