Five Destinations Accounted for 59% of All U.S. Ag Exports

Feb 26, 2019

The United States exported $138 billion worth of agricultural goods in 2017. Since 2015, annual export value has increased each year, but is still down from a record of $150 billion in 2014.

Although the United States exports agricultural goods to most countries worldwide, for the last 3 decades, close to 60 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural exports has gone to five major trading partners: Canada, China, Mexico, the European Union (EU-28), and Japan.

In 2017, this pattern persisted, with 59 percent going to these five markets. The dominance of key U.S. markets occurs for a number of reasons. In the cases of Canada and Mexico, proximity to the United States plays a large role in their trade relationships, and regional trade agreements have further increased trade between the United States and these neighbors.

In the cases of China, Japan, and the EU-28, the sheer size of the economies involved is the key factor determining trade shares: after the United States, the EU-28, China, and Japan have the highest gross domestic products, and each of these countries accounts for a significant share of global imports of agricultural goods.

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