Despite Lousy Trade Policy, U.S. Imports To Top $3 Trillion For 2022

U.S. imports are poised to top $3 trillion for the first time this year, despite a trade policy that has tried to get in the way for six years.

I already wrote that U.S. exports could top $2 trillion and that overall trade would top $5 trillion, both also being firsts. The U.S. trade deficit will top $1 trillion but I need to say “again,” since it did so for the first time last year.

This is the first in a series of columns about the nation’s imports. It will largely focus on the top 10 nations from which the United States will import the majority of that $3 trillion. So, yes, that means China but it also means five other Asian nations as well as our two North American neighbors, Mexico and Canada, and two European nations.

Another column will look at the leading U.S. gateways for those imports, five of which are seaports, three airports and a border crossing with Mexico and one with Canada.

Then, I will profile each of the top 10 imports by value:

1. Oil
2. Passenger vehicles
3. Cell phones and related equipment
4. Computers
5. Medicines in individual dosages
6. Motor vehicle parts
7. Returned exports, without change
8. Vaccines, plasma and other blood fractions
9. Gasoline, other refined petroleum products
10. Computer chips

The nation’s top 10 imports account for almost one third of the value of all imports.

Imports have continue to come this year despite the tariffs on Chinese imports, the lack of a functioning WTO appellate body to settle trade disputes and high inflation that has been stubbornly slow to squash business and consumer demand.

The series on imports follows similar series I have written over the course of the last year or so on the nation’s top 10 exports, top 10 trade partners, and its top 10 “ports” — airports, seaports and border crossings.

China is the leader for U.S, imports, at 16.90% through October, the latest U.S. Census Bureau data available, but it is on track to register the lowest percentage since 2008, the last year of the second Bush Administration. From 2015 to 2018, China accounted for better than 21% of all U.S. imports.

It has ranked first since 2007.

The sweeping tariffs put into place by former President Donald Trump and kept by President Biden are certainly a factor, though many believe China is in part skirting so-called “rules of origin” regulations, shifting some of it U.S. imports to Vietnam and other countries.

Vietnam’s imports to the United States have grown the fastest among the top 10 import trade partners over last year, over the last three years, five years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years. It’s profile of commodities shipped to the United States is similar to that of China.

Mexico ranks No. 2 to China and, like China, is largely about manufactured goods, with a greater emphasis on larger and heavier items like refrigerators, trucks and motor vehicle parts than cell phones, computers, toys and video game consoles, which are stronger with China.

At the moment, Mexico is on track to grab its second-largest percentage of the U.S. import pie, accounting for 13.96% through October, down only slightly from 2019, the only year it topped 14%.

Canada, which ranks third, was the country that China replaced in the No. 1 position in 2007. That year it accounted for 16.28% of total U.S. imports. Thus far this year, Canada is accounting for 13.55%, which while down from record levels, is the greatest percentage since 2014. Oil is the dominant import from Canada, so the United States’ northern neighbor has reaped the benefits of higher oil prices over the last year.

Those three are accounting for 44.41% of all U.S. imports this year. Over the last two decades, these three nations have accounted for between 40.76% and 47.82%, a fairly narrow band. They are the only three nations to have accounted for more than 10% over the last three decades.

Rounding out the top 10 are Japan at 4.48%, Germany (4.35%), Vietnam (4.0), South Korea (3.49%), Taiwan (2.81%), India (2.68%) and Ireland (2.49%).