The politics of trade in the U.S. have gotten complicated during this century, mainly because deindustrialization in the Rust Belt has cost so many factories and jobs. The free trade consensus of the 1990s that led to NAFTA and China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 is dead.
But it shouldn’t be lost on observers of the U.S. economy, or political and business leaders, that the U.S. is still a trade power. Its trade terms are friendly to businesses of all kinds. The U.S. is the world’s top importer, and the number two exporter, behind only China.
When one breaks down U.S. trade by state, as Trade Data Monitor easily permits in its user-friendly interface, one can see that there’s a new profile for the U.S. trade economy. The top sectors for exports are now electronics, centered around California’s trade with Asia, oil and gas out of Texas and Louisiana, and agriculture, including trade out of Illinois. There are, of course, hundreds of other niche sectors doing well in global markets.
The top overall exporter is Texas, which shipped out $266.3 billion of goods in the first seven months of 2024, followed by California ($104 billion), New York ($56.1 billion), Louisiana ($49.9 billion, and Illinois ($47 billion.) Texas’s top exports were oil and gas ($128.7 million), electronics ($28.6 million), industrial equipment ($26.1 million), and plastics ($13.7 million). By country, the top destinations for Texas’ exports were Mexico ($72.7 billion), Canada ($22.2 billion), the Netherlands ($18.2 billion), and South Korea ($14.4 billion).
It’s important to remember that the U.S. has never been a trade monolith. In fact, different trade outcomes in different parts of the country have resulted in political conflict since the beginning of the republic. In the 19th century, for example, Northern industrialists wanted import tariffs to protect their factories. Southern farmers reliant on exports of crops like cotton produced by enslaved labor wanted lower tariffs to keep foreign markets open. In the postindustrial era, the biggest exporters are no longer manufacturing economies like Ohio and Michigan but states with gas and oil fields or big agriculture.
The most diverse trade economy is California’s, partly because of the state’s ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles. California’s top exports in the first seven months of 2024 were industrial machinery ($18.3 billion), electronics ($17.6 billion), optical and medical devices ($11.6 billion), edible fruits and nuts ($6.5 billion), and aircraft and parts ($4.6 billion). California’s top destinations were Mexico ($19 billion), Canada ($11.1 billion), China ($8.8 billion), Japan ($6 billion), and Taiwan ($5.5 billion).
California’s been leading the charge in shipping food and agriculture. The top food and ag exporters in the first seven months were California ($12.6 billion), Louisiana ($10.4 billion), Washington ($10.1 billion), Texas ($5.6 billion), and Illinois ($4.5 billion).
The fifth biggest exporter was Illinois, partly because of its role as a logistics hub centered in and around Chicago. Its top exports were industrial machinery ($8.4 billion), electrical machinery and equipment ($5.5 billion), vehicles ($4.6 billion), food and agriculture ($4.5 billion), and pharmaceuticals ($2.8 billion).
On the import side, the top U.S. importers by state in the first seven months of 2024 were California ($275.7 billion), Texas ($229.1 billion), Illinois ($122.1 billion), Michigan ($102.5 billion), and New Jersey ($89.1 billion). California’s top imports were electrical machinery ($59.1 billion), industrial machinery ($52.6 billion), vehicles ($30.2 billion), and gas and oil ($19.7 billion).