In 2021, Germany Remained European Powerhouse

Germany has been the United States’ fifth-ranked trade partner since 1998 and will be so again when 2021 merchandise trade data is released in early February.

It will also set a record for its U.S. trade, perhaps topping $200 billion for the first time but more likely just missing that milestone.

That’s despite the fact that its trade will have grown slower than the U.S. average from the Covid-hampered 2020 as well as 2019.

Through November, the latest U.S. Census Bureau data available, Germany’s trade with the United States was up 16.59% from 2020, compared to the U.S. average of 21.93%, and up 6.34% from pre-pandemic 2019, compared to 9.67% for the United States as a whole.

This is the fifth in a series of columns focused on each of the United States’ top 10 trade partners. I previously wrote a column about Mexico, currently the nation’s top-ranked trade partner, Canada, China and Japan.

After this analysis of Germany are posts about No. 6 South Korea, No. 7 United Kingdom, No. 8 Taiwan, No. 9 India and No. 10 Vietnam. These 10 account for two-thirds of all U.S. trade, with just the top three at better than 43% this year.

I wrote a similar series of columns about the nation’s top 10 ports — the top-ranked Port of Los Angeles, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Port Laredo in Texas, New York’s JFK International, the Port of Newark, the Port of Houston, Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge, Los Angeles International Airport and the Port of Savannah.

All are based on my analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, which I have been slicing and dicing for two decades.

While the trade partners above and below Germany have jockeyed for position over the last two decades — for example, Mexico, Canada and China have all ranked No. 1 while Japan has ranked second, third and fourth — the same cannot be said for Germany, the United States’ top European trade partner since 1997, when it slipped past the United Kingdom.

It had been No. 4 for a number of years prior, before an upstart slipped past it in 1996. That was China.

The strength of Germany’s trade with the United States is based on its imports. For every dollar of trade with Germany, 33 cents is a U.S. export, compared to the U.S. average of 38 cents.

In fact, No. 6 South Korea will buy more U.S. exports than Germany this year for the first time.

The leading gateway for U.S. trade with Germany for the second consecutive year will be Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

For the rest of the century, the Port of Charleston had ranked first, thanks in large part to BMW auto manufacturing in South Carolina, which also lifted the fortunes of the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport. It has has gone from the 54th-ranked gateway for German trade in 2016 to No. 16 in 2021.

Then came steel tariffs initiated by former President Donald Trump, which made BMWs manufactured in South Carolina more expensive to export, particularly to what was a major market: China. BMW shifted some production to China, in response.

While Charleston’s trade with Germany has recovered from its 2018 levels, it has yet to reach the record levels set in 2014 and 2015.

O’Hare’s trade with Germany, which will narrowly miss $20 billion in setting a record for one port’s trade with Germany, is different from that with the South Carolina seaport, as might be expected.

As an airport, its trade tends to be lighter-weight, high-value commodities in the health-care space.

That would include imports of the category that includes vaccines, plasma and other blood fractions as well as medical instruments, medicines in pill form, X-ray apparatus, and artificial knees and hips.

New York’s JFK International will rank third for 2021, its percetage of trade having gained sharply over the last five years, from 5.60% in 2016 to 8.48% in 2021. 2016 was also the last year any port handled more than 10% of U.S. trade, when Charleston did so.