Alaska trends January 2013: US trade.

• Author: Davidson, Paul
• Position: ALASKA TRENDS

The U.S. Census Bureau is the only official source of monthly statistics on U.S. exports and is also a source of import statistics. The data consists of trade valued at $2,500 and above and is used by the government to analyze trade policy and its effects. Businesses use the industry specific and country specific trade statistics to analyze the foreign and domestic markets. Currently the top three trading partners with the United States are Canada, China and Mexico, making up 16.2 percent, 13.7 percent and 12.5 percent of total U.S. trade, respectively.

The chart shows the U.S. import and export of goods (in billions of U.S. dollars) mostly increasing from the beginning of the dataset in 1960...