U.S. Trade Booms Except For 3 Countries: Russia, Ukraine, Hong Kong

U.S. merchandise trade with the world is on a record-breaking tear, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday, on track to top $5 trillion for the first time.

Trade with Canada is up $125.14 billion through October, according to the new data. It will have obliterated the record annual U.S. trade with one country — which it set in 2014 — by year’s end. In fact, it topped that record by $10 billion in October, with a total of $668.61 billion.

Trade with Mexico is up $110.49 billion. Trade with the United States’ top 10 trade partners was above $100 billion through October for the first time.

In fact, trade with every one of the top 30 U.S. trade partners is up this year. All told, in the first 10 months of the year, total trade stood at $4.46 trillion, only 2.8% below the record-breaking total for all 12 months of 2021.

It’s a different story with Russia, Ukraine and Hong Kong, the only three countries in the world to have seen their U.S. trade decline more than $1 billion when compared to the same 10 months of 2021.

Russia, months deep into an unsuccessful invasion of Ukraine that has been met with scorn and stiff resistance not only by Ukraine but also by Europe, the United States and a number of other countries, has seen its U.S. trade decline by $15.53 billion, from $30.29 billion to $14.76 billion. Its rank as a U.S. trade partner has fallen from No. 22 to No. 40.

The losses of Ukraine and Hong Kong, while less precipitous, stand out nonetheless – Ukraine’s losses tied to the Russian invasion and Hong Kong’s to the dictates of the increasingly repressive China and its zero-Covid policy.

Ukraine’s U.S. trade through the first 10 months of 2022 is off $1.02 billion, from $3.54 billion to $2.51 billion. Its rank as a U.S. trade partner has slipped from 62^nd to 79^th.

The decline in U.S. trade with Hong Kong is equal to $1.97 billion, from $28 billion to $26.03 billion. Its rank has slipped from No. 35 to No. 29.

While U.S. trade with China is increasing this year, up 9.94%, that is more than 60% slower than overall U.S. trade growth with the world. Through October, U.S. trade with the world is up 15.88%.

Ranked third among U.S. trade partners, China had ranked first for a number of years until its trade was slowed by a trade war initiated by former President Donald Trump and continued by his successor, President Biden.

If trade is receding in the wake of a new-if-undeclared Cold War, the previous one having ended more than three decades prior with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of China under Deng Xiaoping. it is receding from the two superpowers with which the United States had sparred from the end of World War II through the end of the 1980s.

Russia, the heart and soul of the former Soviet Union, and China appear hell-bent on moving backwards, on readjudicating what had appeared to have been a settled issue, that freedom and open markets benefit all.

Ironically, it is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has given the biggest boost to the value of U.S. and world trade, spurring energy-related inflation that spread from oil and gasoline to most of the U.S. and global economy, as Western sanctions took hold and created an artificial scarcity.