Trade Data Monitor

Region: U.S.

  • Global Trade is Moving On — Without the U.S.

    Global Trade is Moving On — Without the U.S.

    One way of looking at China’s trade economy in December and for the full 2025 year is its export surge, amplified by a weak currency, deflation at home, and inflation in most of the rest of the world. China pumped up total monthly exports 6.6% to $357.8 billion in December from $335.6 billion over the same period in 2024. 

    Here’s another angle: Washington’s efforts to crimp Beijing’s industrial sector have resulted in diminished U.S.-China trade, but even bigger Chinese surpluses with the rest of the world, and evolutions in global trade that are simply leaving America behind. For the full year, China exported $3.8 trillion worth of goods. Minus imports, that made for a total surplus of $1.19 trillion, the biggest in recorded economic history. 

    Chinese officials themselves have drawn direct links between U.S. policy and its surplus, saying in effect that without tariffs, Beijing would have bought more goods from the rest of the world. “Some countries have politicized economic and trade issues and restricted exports of high-tech products to China for various reasons; otherwise, we would have imported even more,” Wang Jun, a Chinese trade official, told reporters Wednesday. 

    According to the Petersen Institute for international economics, U.S. tariffs on Chinese exports average around 47%, while China’s average tariffs on US exports are around 32%.

    The Chinese export juggernaut needs markets like nature abhors a vacuum, and it’s found new landing places for its voluminous container ships. Exports to the European Union increased 11.5% in December to $51.9 billion. Exports to Germany increased 13% to $11 billion. By comparison, exports to the U.S. fell 30.2% to $34.2 billon. We are seeing the wheels of human economic history turn in real time. Global trade is still inching upward every year. The rest of the world is getting on with it, leaving the U.S. behind. While ports on the East and West coasts slow their activity, they’re busy in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa. Exports to ASEAN nations increased 11.3% to $66.4 billion, including a 20.4% jump to Vietnam to $18.9 billion; shipments to Latin America rose 9.8% to $25.7 billion; and sales to India increased 22.1% to $12.8 billion.  

    The story of global trade right now is geopolitics. It’s the jolt of the U.S. away from its post-war free trade consensus. There is another story we’ve discussed here that is less surprising but still ongoing. It’s the move of China and other Asian countries up the value chain, away from toys and shoes and into tech and cars. At the same time, countries like Egypt, Bangladesh and Cambodia continue to build up their apparel and textile exports. 

    In December, Chinese exports of high-tech products increased 16.7% to $93.7 billion. Sales of motor vehicles increased 73.2% to 994,000. By value, they rose 71.7% to $17.1 billion. Exports of toys fell 19.4% to $2.7 billion. Shipments of footwear dropped 17.4% to $3.9 billion. 

    On the import side, China ramped up purchases 5.7% to $243.6 billion from $230.5 billion. The relationship with the EU seems more two-sided than in the past. Imports from the EU rose 17.9% to $26.9 billion, while purchases from the U.S. plummeted 28.6% to $10.9 billion. Imports from Germany increased 13.6% to $8.9 billion. Imports from Latin America increased 26.8% to $24.4 billion. Imports from India rose 56.5% to $2.2 billion.

    Buying more from Europe and Latin America was also at the expense of some Asian neighbors. Imports from ASEAN countries fell 5.1% to $35.7 billion. Even imports from Vietnam were flat at $9.5 billion. 

    Imports of high-tech products rose 13.6% to $82.6 billion. Purchases of soybeans increased 4.7% to $3.9 billion. China still needs a protein supply, and it’s getting it from Brazil instead of the U.S.

    One sign the Chinese economy is doing just fine: China ramped up purchases of natural resources. It increased quantities of imports of iron ore by 6.5%, copper 7.3%, coal 11.9%, oil 17.4%, and natural gas 90.2%.

  • TDM’s Top 10 Trade Trends to Watch in 2026

    TDM’s Top 10 Trade Trends to Watch in 2026

    Happy New Year. While we wait on the Supreme Court to rule whether the Trump administration is entitled to apply tariffs on national security grounds, global trade grinds on. We at Trade Data Monitor are paying attention to what’s happening via the prism of official trade statistics. It’s a radically different world than when I started covering trade for the Wall Street Journal 20 years ago. The biggest story is still in tech, where the economy is being transformed by investment in chips and other electronics used to make artificial intelligence systems. Shut out of the U.S., many Chinese exporters are finding new markets in Europe. Beijing is not giving up its export-dependent growth model, which in 2025 propelled the world’s first-ever trillion-dollar trade surplus. Via our system for reverse engineering trade data, we can discern that Russia’s import demand is shrinking. Vietnam is still climbing the economic ladder, thanks to an export portfolio that includes staples like toys and shoes, but also high-value electronics. Most of the world has not given up on trade. In October, global container volumes increased 2.1%. However, the U.S. is an outlier. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. saw an 8% contraction in inbound shipments. Although President Trump threatened much higher levies, the U.S. effective tariff rate is “only” around 15%. That’s its highest level since the 1930s, and it’s the main reason the WTO is now forecasting 0.5% growth in global trade in 2026, instead of 1.8%.Here are our top trade trends to watch in 2026.
    1.   The Asian Chip MiracleThe chip market is expected to reach around $750 billion in 2026 and hit $2 trillion by the early 2030s. In its latest incarnation that trend is being led by Asia. Eight of the world’s top 10 exporters of chips, classified under HS8541 and HS8542 are Asian. Only the U.S. and Germany crack the top 10. 
    Thanks in part to the chip industry, and parallel industries in batteries, engines and electronics, the electric vehicle industry is thriving. Slowly, the world’s road and filling stations are being rewired. In country after country, electric car imports have been increasing.  One consequence is booming trade in the critical minerals, like cobalt, manganese and nickel, needed to build electric cars and batteries. We’ll explore that trade in our February newsletter. 
    2.   China Finding Markets in EuropeWith the U.S. throwing up roadblocks, Chinese exporters have been finding markets in Europe. That’s triggered a crisis for European domestic manufacturers, who are now having to compete with the China price Americans have turned down.
    3.   Where is U.S.-China Trade Headed?The future of the U.S.-China trade relationship seems uncertain at best. When we added up total trade between the two behemoths, the only sector has grew in 2025 was aircraft. The U.S. shipped $12.5 billion of aircraft and aircraft parts to China in the first nine months of 2025, up 45% from the same period in 2024.
    4.   How Vietnam is Winning Global TradeAt TDM, we’ve been talking about Vietnam’s promise for a decade, so we’re not surprised to see its strong export numbers. The remarkable thing about Vietnam isn’t that it has become an export machine, it’s that its manufacturing capacity has increased across so broad a base. 5.   Russia’s Shrinking Import DemandRussia still isn’t publishing trade statistics, but thanks to the breadth of TDM’s database, we can look at which countries are shipping to Russia. Those exports to Russia are mostly shrinking, an indication of the battering Russia has been taking from the war. The IMF and other institutions predict Russian GDP growth of only around 1% in 2026. 
     6.   U.S. Imports from MexicoThe biggest beneficiary of the U.S.’s trade war with China has been Mexico. Although the two countries, and Canada, are now renegotiating the USMCA, businesses have had confidence they can manufacture in Mexico and ship north. Mexico has been suppressing data, but U.S. import statistics paint a picture.
    7.   Indian ExportsNow with the world’s biggest population, India has now overtaken Japan as the world’s fourth biggest economy, behind the U.S., China and Germany. Its top market: the U.S., followed by UAE and the Netherlands. 
    8.   Trade Case Study: EgyptTrade coverage focuses on the big countries, but we’ve been studying smaller players, and one interesting case study is Egypt. It’s been boosting apparel exports, a sign of a country’s increasing prosperity and competitiveness on export markets. In 2025, Egypt clocked the biggest increase in apparel exports, shipping out $2.6 billion in the first nine months of 2025, 30.7% more than the year before. The second highest increase was registered by Cambodia at 16.9%, and no other country improved by double digits. 9.   What States’ Ports and Economies Are Thriving MostAmerica is a huge continental economy with dozens of distinct economic regions and sea- and airports. We sorted every state by increase year-on-year in exports from the place it’s leaving the U.S., over the first nine months of 2025. Texas and California are still the biggest exporters overall, but New York leads the race in year-on, because of its trade in physical gold. Arizona ranks second because of its electronics trade with Mexico. Third is Indiana, thanks to its exports of hormones to Italy. 10.   U.S. Wine ExportsA retaliatory tariff and a “Buy Canadian” movement have dented U.S. wine exports to its northern neighbor. Instead, U.S. producers are finding replacement markets in Germany, South Africa and Japan. 
    5 News Stories To Understand This Moment in Global Trade 📰
      
    WSJ: A Shrimper, a Carmaker, a Lawyer: How the World Tackled Trump’s Trade War: A fascinating mini-survey of how businesses around the world are being impacted by tariffs.Euronews: In 2025, global trade cracked as Europe hurt by US tariffs and new China shock: An important perspective, from Europe, on how trade flows have been rerouted toward the Old World. Global Trade: U.S. Tariffs to Cost Container Carriers $.2 billion by 2026, Alphaliner Warns: The U.S. isn’t just imposing tariffs on goods, it’s putting duties on ships. AP: Trump launched global tariff wars in 2025. Here’s a recap of his trade actions this year: A useful recap of U.S. trade duties in 2025. BBC: Peru’s ‘fast and furious’ blueberry boom: An optimistic story about global trade, chronicling how Peru has become the world’s biggest blueberry exporter.
    What We’re Reading 📚
      With tariffs still beating down optimism over global trade, it’s easy to get dragged down by the political story of modern commerce. What’s lost is the triumph of human ingenuity represented by the global logistics industry figuring out how to move goods from any place in the world to any other place. My former Wall Street Journalcolleague Christopher Mims tells that story in his 2021 book Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door—Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy. In an illustrative anecdote, Mims tells the story of a USB charger. After leaving a factory in Vietnam, Mims recounts, the charger “has traveled more than 14,000 miles, across 12 times zones, by truck, barge, crane, container ship, crane, and truck again, all before it trundled down a few hundred yards of conveyor, flitted about on the back of a robot, and was ferried again on, all told, miles more conveyor and at least two more trucks, before being hand-carried to someone’s front door.”

  • What’s Behind the High-Tech Trade Slump?

    What’s Behind the High-Tech Trade Slump?

    It’s not been an easy time for international trade, as a recent report co-authored by Trade Data Monitor and the World Intellectual Property Organization found.

    High-tech exports are set to decline by 4 percent in 2023, according to the TDM/WIPO analysis. Global and high-tech trade have soared and sunk like rollercoasters since 2019. After the strong post-pandemic recovery in 2021 followed by a slowdown in 2022, total merchandise trade is expected to grow at a meagre 0.8 percent in 2023.

    Changing global value chains and geopolitical tensions are driving some of the trade slowdown, as well as inflation which is increasing the costs of traded high-tech goods. The development of new sectors, particularly in the manufacturing of renewable energies, batteries and electric vehicles, helps mitigate the high-tech growth slump, however.

    The key player, as a consumer and manufacturer, is still China, and Chinese high-tech exports fell 11.4% to USD 728.2 billion in the first 10 months of 2023. The country’s smartphone exports fell by close to 7% to USD 106.8 billion, and sales of its data processing machines dropped 24% to USD 82.8 billion (see Figure 3). Shipments to many of China’s traditional trading partners dropped. Exports to the U.S. fell by 21% to USD 102.7 billion; to the Republic of Korea by 13.4% to USD 33.9 billion, and to the Netherlands by close to 20% to USD 33 billion. Still, despite the decline, China is the leading high-tech exporter by far.

    Other Asian economies also experienced high-tech export declines. Exports of the Republic of Korea, for example, declined by 28% to USD 110 billion. Japanese exports fell 10% to USD 76.9 billion. Viet Nam’s export fared better, falling 1.7% to USD 115 billion in the first nine months of 2023.

    By contrast, U.S. high-tech exports rose 4.4% to USD 282.5 billion. Shipments to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium all rose by double digits. U.S. exports of smartphones, routers, board and panels, parts for gas turbines, and computers all increased.

    Germany’s high-tech exports rose 6.6% to USD 217.4 billion over the first ten months of 2023. Exports of big airplanes rose 26.8% to USD 19.7 billion, shipments of immunological products rose 9.4% to USD 24.5 billion, and sales of processors and controllers, electric integrated circuits jumped 23.5% to USD 9.6 billion. And France’s high-tech exports increased 2.7% to USD 97.7 billion, thanks to increases in shipments of airplanes (up 16.9% to USD 19.7 billion), electronic integrated circuits (up 16.9% to USD 5.6 billion), and spacecraft, including satellites (up 438.4% to USD 2.1 billion). 

    Other fast-growing high-tech exporters in Europe include Austria, Hungary and Poland. Austria’s high-tech exports rose 16.9% to USD 22.1. billion in the first 10 months of 2023, thanks to hikes in shipments of anti-serum, up 26.7% to USD 3.8 billion, electrical panels, up 17.3% to USD 983 million, and transistors, up 40.8% to USD 650.1 million.

    Hungary’s high-tech exports increased 10.8% to USD 20 billion, on the back of sales of processors, up 11.2% to USD 2.3 billion, routers, up 27% to USD 1.7 billion, and smartphones, up 99.7% to USD 1.1 billion. Polish high-tech shipments increased 7% to USD 29.5 billion thanks to sales of data processing machines, airplane parts and hearing aids.

    John W. Miller

  • Trade Data Monitor’s Top 10 Trade Trends Going Into 2024

    Trade Data Monitor’s Top 10 Trade Trends Going Into 2024

    It’s not an easy time for global trade–the roughly $25 trillion piece of the $105 trillion world economy. Protectionism is roaring in the U.S. and Europe, causing geopolitical tension with China. Inflation across most of the world has shrunk consumers’ wallets and imports, while deflation in China is also scaring businesses. Asian supply chains are slumping. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the late 2023 conflict in Israel-Palestine has created more business uncertainty, danger for container ships transiting the Red Sea, and geopolitical tension. And then there’s the structural shifts in supply chains that have raised fears of deglobalization. That is probably less of a risk that people think. “We do see some signs in the data of trade fragmentation linked to geopolitical tensions,” said WTO chief economist Ralph Ossa. “Fortunately, broader deglobalization is not here yet. The data suggest that goods continue to be produced through complex supply chains, but that the extent of these chains may have plateaued, at least in the short run.” In other words, this is a time of change, more reason than ever to pay close attention to trends.

    Here are Trade Data Monitor’s top 10 ongoing trade trends at the start of 2024:

    1. Trade Crisis: Protectionism, price swings (inflation in the U.S. and Europe, deflation in China) and geopolitical tensions have created an uncertain environment for trade. The World Trade Organization now forecasts global trade to grow by only 0.8% in 2023, less than half the 1.7% increase predicted in April. For 2024, the WTO expects an increase of 3.3%, a modest recovery, but below the trend in the early 2000s.
    2. The COVID Effect: The COVID-19 pandemic depressed trade in 2020-2023, but now it’s triggered a booming in shipments of vaccines and medical test kits. The U.S. increased imports of medical test kits 46% to $44.7 billion in the 10 months of 2023. The top exporters of medical test kids are Switzerland (up 12% to $39.3 billion), Germany (up 9% to $24.5 billion), and the U.S. (up 11% to $16 billion), followed by Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands.
    3. China Problem: It used to be that you could count on death, taxes and an uptick in Chinese exports. That’s no longer the case. Manufacturers have diversified their supply chains, consumers aren’t buying enough, and tariffs and export restrictions are rising. The upshot: In the first 11 months of 2023, Chinese exports declined 4% to $3.1 trillion. Exports to the U.S. over that time fell 13% to $463.7 billion.
    4. Asia’s Slump: China wasn’t the only Asian country to suffer declining exports. Singapore’s shipments fell 9.3% to $395.5 billion, South Korean exports declined 10% to $519.3 billion, and Japan’s sales fell 4.6% to $591.4 billion, and Taiwan’s exports fell 12.6% to $354.2 billion in the first 10 months of 2023.
    5. U.S. and European Rebound: The situation has been better for the U.S. and Europe. Supply chains are adjusting away from China, benefitting U.S. and European trade. Germany’s exports rose 1.5% to $1.4 trillion and French shipments increased 5.3% to $527.9 billion in the first 10 months of 2023. U.S exports declined 2.4% overall to $1.7 trillion, but that was mainly because of a decline in fuel prices. Shipments of electronics, machinery, cars, airplanes and pharmaceuticals all increased.
    6. Don’t Take Your Eye Off Electric Cars: Electric cars might be the most significant trade product in the world right now. Germany (up 86% in the first nine months of 2023 to $30.4 billion), China (up 112% to $25.1 billion), Belgium (up 78.1% to $13.3 billion), South Korea (up 89% to $10.4 billion) and the U.S. (up 41.4% to $5.8 billion) are leading the charge.
    7. The Energy Revolution: Investments in green energy, driven by governments and consumer demand, are propelling new trade flows. For example, U.S. imports of solar panels and related parts increased 70.1% to $19.5 billion in the first 10 months of 2023.
    8. Russia-China Trade: The huge boom in Russia-China trade, triggered by the war in Ukraine and subsequent U.S. and European sanctions, is still going on but it is finally showing signs of tapering off. Russia is now China’s sixth biggest source of imports and sixth biggest export destination. But after triple-digit increases in 2022, monthly increases are finally dropping. For example, in November 2023, Chinese exports to Russia increased 35% to $10.3 billion.  
    9. Regional Trade Boom: We’re seeing a healthy boom in regional trade networks. One example is the Middle East. For example, Iranian exports to Iraq (+73%) and Turkey (+32%) increased but the country’s shipments to China fell 16.3% in the first nine month of 2023. And the increases weren’t only driven by higher oil prices. Iran increased its oil exports to Iraq 332.8% to 88.4 million barrels in the first nine months of 2023.
    10. China is Buying All the Coal: While much of the rest of the world is trying to wean itself from fossil fuels, especially the dirtiest one, coal, China is ramping up imports. Ironically, it needs coal partly to power a new generation of power plants pumping out electricity for electric car batteries. In the first 10 months of 2023, it hiked purchases of the black rock 38% to $33.5 billion by value, and 96.6% by quantity to 250.3 million tons.

    John W. Miller is Trade Data Monitor’s Chief Economic Analyst, in charge of writing TDM Insights, a newsletter analyzing key issues through trade statistics. John is an award-winning journalist who’s reported from 45 countries for the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and NPR.

  • TDM Data Used to Scrutinize Impact of Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

    TDM Data Used to Scrutinize Impact of Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

    Trade scholars in a recent paper used Trade Data Monitor data on steel and aluminum trade to gauge the impact of 2018-2019 protectionist measures on U.S. and European Union imports.

    The paper by Simon Evenett and Fernando Martin, published by the Center for European Policy Research, found that because the U.S. and European Union import relatively small quantities of Chinese metals, “limited EU and US leverage is unlikely to change investment plans of Chinese steel producers.” If the U.S. and EU raise tariffs, Chinese exports will be redirected to “third markets – and this may not be without cost to Chinese firms that may have to accept lower export prices.”

    For example, China accounted for only 11% of U.S. aluminum imports and 2% of steel imports in 2022, according to TDM data.

    The U.S. and EU have been negotiating a new agreement on steel and aluminum trade known as the Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum, to “address carbon emissions on steel and aluminum” while restoring “market-oriented conditions.”

    The paper found that “while EU and US purchases of steel and aluminum account for half of world imports, so diversified are China’s exports that transatlantic leverage over Chinese producers is likely to disappoint. Further trade deflection, not accelerated Chinese decarbonisation, is the likely outcome of any climate-related sectoral trade deal.”