The United States is one of the world’s leading exporting countries.
Countries export a wide range of products, from consumer products to raw materials and energy resources. In general, the largest industrialized nations export the most, while the smaller, less developed nations export relatively little. Also, most countries try to find a balance between their exports and their imports, so when they export a lot, they also tend to import a lot.
In 2010, Chinese products worth more than 1 billion dollars were exported around the world.
The easiest way to gauge which countries export the most is simply to look at the total value of their combined exports. The total value of all the world’s exports in 2010 was estimated to be around $15.18 trillion US dollars (USD). Of this total, China ranks first among individual nations with a combined export value of around $1.581 trillion. Germany follows with a combined export value of $1.303 billion. The United States ranks third, exporting $1.289 billion. These top three nations export $4.173 trillion worth of goods, or just under a third of the total value of the world’s exports.
Consumer products are an example of items shipped for export around the world.
These numbers are especially interesting when compared to the total value of imports from these nations. The United States is the largest importer in terms of value, with total imports of around $1.935 billion. China comes next with imports worth $1.327 billion, and Germany comes in third with imports worth $1.099 billion. This means that these three countries import about $4.361 billion worth of goods, about the same as their total exports, but with a larger amount shipped by the United States.
The People’s Republic of China usually tops the list of countries with the most exports.
The other top ten exporting countries are Japan at $730.1 billion, France at $517.2 billion, the Netherlands at $486.7 billion, South Korea at $464.3 billion, Italy at 448.4 billion, the UK at $410.2 billion, and Russia at $400.1 billion. These other seven countries add up to exports worth around $3.457 trillion, even less than the total of the top three. This also means that the top ten exporting countries export about $7.63 trillion, or about half of total world exports. The top ten importing countries are very similar: Japan, France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and South Korea appear on both lists, with Canada overtaking Russia as the top importer.
Germany ranks third in the list of exporting countries.
The amount these top nations export is even more impressive when compared to the nations at the bottom of the list. Countries like Tuvalu and Naura, for example, which are small island nations with small populations, export less than 1/100th of 1% of what a nation like the United States exports. Nauru, for example, had total exports of just $64,000 in 2005. Even reasonably large nations can hardly export if their economies are impoverished enough. Rwanda, for example, exported only $234.2 million in 2010, or about 1/2000 of the exports of a country like the Netherlands.
Exports can also be viewed in terms of per capita values, which helps balance population differences. Germany, for example, exports $1.303 billion and has a population of around 81.4 million people, which represents exports per capita of around $16,000. China, on the other hand, exports $1.581 trillion worth of goods, but has a population of 1.33 billion people, representing per capita exports of just $1,200. The United States has exports valued at US$1.289 trillion and a population of around 313 million people, which represents exports per capita of around US$4,100.