U.S. Trade With Mexico Surges to No. 1 Position

Mexico was the biggest trade partner of the U.S. in 2023 and the biggest source of the country's imports ahead of China. Trade with Mexico - both imports and exports - totaled close to $800 billion last year as efforts to source closer to home and reduce dependence on China are ongoing in the U.S. and other Western countries. The U.S. has also intensified trade with its neighbor to the North. Canada is currently the country's top 2 trade partner and top 3 source of imports, only slightly behind China for the latter metric. Trade with two more close allies, Japan and Germany, also grew over the last couple of years.

China has traditionally bought fewer goods from the U.S. than Mexico and Canada so when its imports to the U.S. dropped last year, so did its overall trade balance with its North American partner.

China was the biggest trade partner of the U.S. between 2015 and 2018. Canada and Mexico then became top partners at the height of the U.S.-China trade war in 2019. 2020 and the outbreak of the coronavirus caused a trade slump in the U.S. and saw China reemerge as the country's biggest partner since the pandemic affected it only from a later date. When the pandemic subsided in 2022 and 2023 and critique of China soared, first Canada and then Mexico got ahead, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.