The US Trade Deficit by Country in 2026 is led by Vietnam at $210.93 billion, Mexico at $203.41 billion, and Taiwan at $197.57 billion over the twelve months through June 2026, while the total US goods and services trade balance stood at negative $73.3 billion for that same month. The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong remain the largest US trade surplus partners, offsetting a small share of an overall goods deficit that has exceeded $1 trillion for the year.
US Trade Deficit by Country Statistics 2026
The US Trade Deficit by Country rankings have shifted dramatically over the past two years, and the 2026 data confirms a structural change in how America trades with the rest of the world. Vietnam now sits at the very top of the deficit list, a position once reserved almost exclusively for China, as electronics assembly, textile production, and footwear manufacturing relocated across Southeast Asia in response to sustained tariff pressure on Chinese goods. Mexico and Taiwan round out the top three, reflecting two very different trade dynamics: Mexico’s deeply integrated automotive and agricultural supply chains under USMCA, and Taiwan’s near-total dominance of advanced semiconductor exports to American technology companies.
This reshuffling matters because the US Trade Deficit by Country picture is no longer a simple story of America versus China. It has become a story of supply chain relocation, friend-shoring, and a widening gap between goods and services trade. The United States continues to run a goods deficit exceeding $1 trillion annually while maintaining a services surplus near $330 billion, a split that explains why the country can simultaneously post record import bills for physical products while still leading the world in exported software, financial services, and intellectual property licensing. Understanding which countries drive the deficit, and which offset it, is essential for anyone tracking US economic policy, tariff decisions, or manufacturing competitiveness in 2026.
Interesting Facts About the US Trade Deficit by Country 2026
| Fact Category | 2026 Key Data Point |
|---|---|
| Largest single-country deficit | Vietnam, at $210.93 billion over the 12 months through June 2026 |
| Total US goods trade deficit, 2026 | Over $1 trillion annually |
| US services trade surplus, 2026 | Approximately $330 billion |
| Total trade balance, June 2026 | -$73.3 billion for the month |
| Largest surplus partner | Netherlands, at $76.56 billion over the 12 months through June 2026 |
| America’s top overall trading partner | Mexico, ahead of Canada and China |
| China’s deficit rank, 2026 | Dropped out of the top three for the first time in over two decades |
| January 2026 monthly deficit | $54.5 billion, the lowest since October 2025 |
| Record annual goods deficit | $1.24 trillion recorded in full-year 2025 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau FT-900, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Joint Economic Committee 2026 Monthly Trade Update
The Interesting Facts table captures the single biggest headline in this year’s data: China no longer holds the largest bilateral trade deficit with the United States. That title now belongs to Vietnam, a shift driven almost entirely by tariff-driven supply chain relocation rather than any organic collapse in Chinese manufacturing capacity. Companies that once shipped finished electronics, apparel, and furniture directly from Chinese factories increasingly route final assembly through Vietnam, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian manufacturing hubs, which lets the same underlying production network avoid the highest tariff brackets while the goods still arrive in American ports as imports counted against a different country of origin.
The gap between the goods deficit exceeding $1 trillion and the services surplus near $330 billion is the second major theme running through the 2026 data. America’s trade imbalance is not evenly distributed across the economy. It is concentrated almost entirely in physical, manufactured goods, while sectors like software licensing, financial services, cloud computing, and intellectual property continue to generate a steady American trade surplus with the rest of the world. This split has become central to how policymakers frame tariff strategy, since raising duties on imported goods does nothing to change the services side of the ledger where the US already wins decisively.
US Trade Deficit by Country 2026 — Top 10 Rankings
Largest US Trade Deficits by Country 2026 (12 Months Through June, $ Billions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vietnam ████████████████████████████████████████ $210.93B
Mexico ██████████████████████████████████████ $203.41B
Taiwan █████████████████████████████████████ $197.57B
China ████████████████████████████ $185B
Ireland █████████████████████ $148B
Germany █████████████████ $105B
Switzerland ███████████████ $88B
Japan █████████████ $72B
South Korea ████████████ $68B
Cambodia ███████ $42B
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Rank | Country | 12-Month Deficit (Through June 2026) | Share of Total Goods Deficit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vietnam | $210.93 billion | 19.97% |
| 2 | Mexico | $203.41 billion | 19.26% |
| 3 | Taiwan | $197.57 billion | 18.71% |
| 4 | China | ~$185 billion | ~17.5% |
| 5 | Ireland | ~$148 billion | ~14% |
| 6 | Germany | ~$105 billion | ~10% |
| 7 | Switzerland | ~$88 billion | ~8.3% |
| 8 | Japan | ~$72 billion | ~6.8% |
| 9 | South Korea | ~$68 billion | ~6.4% |
| 10 | Cambodia | ~$42 billion | ~4% |
Source: Joint Economic Committee Monthly Trade Update, U.S. Census Bureau FT-900 2026
The US Trade Deficit by Country rankings for 2026 show Vietnam, Mexico, and Taiwan commanding almost 58% of the total goods trade deficit between them, a level of concentration that would have been unthinkable a decade ago when China alone accounted for over a third of the imbalance. Vietnam’s $210.93 billion deficit reflects its transformation into the primary electronics and apparel assembly hub for supply chains exiting China, while Mexico’s $203.41 billion stems from an entirely different dynamic: deeply integrated USMCA-protected automotive, agricultural, and industrial trade that flows in both directions but still tilts heavily toward US imports.
Taiwan’s $197.57 billion deficit is arguably the most structurally significant entry on this list, because it is driven almost entirely by a single product category — semiconductors — where Taiwanese fabrication plants supply the overwhelming majority of the advanced chips powering American technology, defense, and AI infrastructure. China’s decline to fourth place at an estimated $185 billion marks the first time in over two decades that China has not held either the first or second position, a direct consequence of tariff escalation and the broader “decoupling” trend documented across trade policy circles. For readers tracking the specific bilateral relationship with China in more depth, the China trade surplus with the US report breaks down the sector-by-sector composition of that declining but still substantial deficit.
US Trade Surplus Countries 2026 — Where America Sells More Than It Buys
Largest US Trade Surpluses by Country 2026 (12 Months Through June, $ Billions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Netherlands ████████████████████████████████████████ $76.56B
United Kingdom ███████████████████████ $44.49B
Hong Kong ██████████████████████ $42.86B
S & C America ██████████████████████████ $52.4B
Singapore ██████████████ $28B
Australia ███████████ $22B
Belgium ██████████ $19B
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Rank | Country / Region | Annual Surplus (2026) | Primary Export Drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netherlands | $76.56 billion | Energy, chemicals, Rotterdam re-export trade |
| 2 | South & Central America | $52.4 billion | Agriculture, energy |
| 3 | United Kingdom | $44.49 billion | Financial services, aerospace, pharmaceuticals |
| 4 | Hong Kong | $42.86 billion | Financial services, luxury goods re-export |
| 5 | Singapore | ~$28 billion | Electronics re-export, financial services |
| 6 | Australia | ~$22 billion | Machinery, aircraft, professional services |
| 7 | Belgium | ~$19 billion | Chemicals, pharmaceuticals |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau FT-900 Annual Release, Bureau of Economic Analysis 2026
The US trade surplus countries in 2026 tell a story that rarely makes headlines compared to the deficit rankings, but it is just as important for understanding America’s overall trade position. Netherlands leads by a wide margin at $76.56 billion, a figure driven less by direct Dutch consumption of American goods and more by Rotterdam’s role as Europe’s largest port and re-export hub, where American energy products, chemicals, and agricultural exports enter the continent before being redistributed to other EU member states. This re-export dynamic means the Netherlands surplus overstates direct bilateral demand while still representing genuine dollar-value trade flowing through Dutch infrastructure.
The United Kingdom’s $44.49 billion surplus and Hong Kong’s $42.86 billion surplus both rest heavily on services rather than physical goods, reflecting American strength in financial services, insurance, aerospace engineering, and intellectual property licensing that these two international financial centers import at scale. South and Central America, tracked as a regional bloc rather than individual countries in Census Bureau reporting, contributes a combined $52.4 billion surplus driven primarily by American agricultural exports and refined energy products flowing to a region with limited domestic refining capacity.
US Imports and Exports by Country 2026 — Total Trade Volume Rankings
Total US Trade Volume by Country 2026 (Exports + Imports, $ Billions Annualized)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mexico ████████████████████████████████████████ $850B
Canada ██████████████████████████████████████ $820B
China █████████████████████████████ $610B
Germany ████████████████████ $410B
Japan ██████████████████ $380B
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Rank | Country | Total Trade Volume (2026, Annualized) | US Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mexico | ~$850 billion | Deficit |
| 2 | Canada | ~$820 billion | Deficit |
| 3 | China | ~$610 billion | Deficit |
| 4 | Germany | ~$410 billion | Deficit |
| 5 | Japan | ~$380 billion | Deficit |
| 6 | South Korea | ~$230 billion | Deficit |
| 7 | Taiwan | ~$225 billion | Deficit |
| 8 | United Kingdom | ~$155 billion | Surplus |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau Top Trading Partners Report 2026, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Total trade volume rankings look meaningfully different from pure deficit rankings, and this distinction matters for understanding the difference between a bilateral imbalance and the sheer scale of a trading relationship. Mexico now holds the position of America’s single largest trading partner by total volume, a status it earned as friend-shoring and USMCA-protected supply chains pulled manufacturing investment north from Asia toward North America. Canada, despite significant political friction over tariffs throughout 2025 and 2026, remains the second-largest trading partner by total volume, with combined goods and services trade approaching $820 billion even as the bilateral relationship has grown more contentious. The details of that specific dispute, including the tariff escalation that began in mid-2026, are covered extensively in the Canada tariffs on US goods statistics report, which tracks the retaliatory measures both governments have exchanged this year.
China’s total trade volume of roughly $610 billion still places it comfortably in third place despite its declining deficit ranking, illustrating that reduced dependence on Chinese manufacturing has not eliminated the relationship, only reshaped its composition. Germany and Japan round out the top five, both driven overwhelmingly by machinery, automotive, and precision manufacturing exports to the United States, categories where American consumers continue to favor specific European and Japanese brands despite tariff pressure that has raised the landed cost of these imports throughout 2026.
US Trade Deficit Historical Trend 2016 to 2026
US Annual Goods and Services Trade Deficit ($ Billions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2016 ████████████████████████████████ $734.3B
2020 ████████████████████████████ $626.2B
2022 ████████████████████████████████████████ $958.9B
2024 ██████████████████████████████████████ $918.4B
2025 ████████████████████████████████████████████████ $1,240B (goods only)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Year | Annual Trade Deficit | Key Driver |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | $734.3 billion | Pre-tariff baseline trade patterns |
| 2018 | $878.7 billion | Early trade tensions, tariff impacts |
| 2020 | $626.2 billion | COVID-19 pandemic contraction |
| 2022 | $958.9 billion | Post-pandemic import surge |
| 2024 | $918.4 billion | Robust consumer demand |
| 2025 (Goods Only) | $1.24 trillion | Record annual goods deficit |
| 2026 (Trend, Through June) | -$73.3 billion (monthly) | Supply chain relocation, tariff realignment |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Historical Trade Archive, Visual Capitalist 2026 Analysis
The historical trend from 2016 through 2026 shows a trade deficit that has grown substantially larger in absolute dollar terms even as the underlying country composition has shifted dramatically. The deficit sat at $734.3 billion in 2016 and reached a record $1.24 trillion in goods trade alone during 2025, more than 68% larger in less than a decade despite multiple rounds of tariff escalation specifically designed to shrink it. This pattern reflects a persistent structural reality: American consumer demand for manufactured imports has grown faster than tariff policy has been able to suppress it, even as the specific countries supplying those imports have changed substantially.
The 2020 dip to $626.2 billion stands out as the only meaningful multi-year decline in the entire dataset, driven entirely by pandemic-related demand collapse rather than any structural trade policy success. Every other year in the series shows deficits consistently above $700 billion, reinforcing that America’s trade imbalance is a durable feature of its consumption-driven economy rather than a temporary or easily reversible condition. The January 2026 monthly figure of $54.5 billion, the lowest since October 2025, suggests some near-term moderation, but the year-over-year trend still points toward another historically large annual total once full 2026 figures are finalized.
US Trade Deficit by Sector 2026 — Goods vs Services Breakdown
US Trade Balance by Sector 2026 ($ Billions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Goods Deficit ████████████████████████████████████████ -$1,000B+
Services Surplus ████████████████████ +$330B
Net Trade Balance ██████████████ -$670B (approx.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Trade Category | 2026 Annual Value | Trend vs. 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Goods Trade Deficit | Over $1 trillion | Widening |
| Services Trade Surplus | ~$330 billion | Stable to slightly widening |
| Consumer Electronics Deficit | ~$210 billion | Widening (shifted to Vietnam) |
| Semiconductor Deficit | ~$140 billion | Widening (Taiwan concentration) |
| Automotive Deficit | ~$155 billion | Stable |
| Financial Services Surplus | ~$105 billion | Widening |
| Intellectual Property Surplus | ~$95 billion | Widening |
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis International Transactions Report 2026
Breaking the US trade deficit by sector reveals why blanket tariffs on imported goods have struggled to meaningfully close the overall gap. The goods deficit exceeding $1 trillion dwarfs the services surplus of roughly $330 billion, and the specific goods categories driving that imbalance — consumer electronics, semiconductors, and automobiles — are precisely the categories where American manufacturing capacity has shrunk fastest over the past three decades, making rapid domestic substitution difficult regardless of tariff rates imposed on foreign suppliers.
On the surplus side, financial services and intellectual property continue to expand as American strengths, generating a combined $200 billion in surplus that partially, though far from completely, offsets the goods imbalance. This sectoral split explains why trade policy debates increasingly separate “goods deficit” rhetoric from the broader trade balance conversation: closing the goods gap would require either a massive reshoring of manufacturing capacity that takes years to build, or a reduction in American consumer demand for imported electronics, vehicles, and apparel that shows no sign of slowing despite higher tariff-driven prices throughout 2026.
Regional US Trade Deficit Statistics 2026 — USMCA, Asia & Europe
US Trade Balance by Regional Bloc 2026 ($ Billions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Asia-Pacific ████████████████████████████ -$720B
USMCA (Mexico+Canada) ███████████████████ -$460B (combined w/ CA narrowing)
European Union ████████████ -$220B
Middle East ████ -$25B
Africa ██ -$12B
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Regional Bloc | 2026 Trade Balance | Dominant Trade Category |
|---|---|---|
| Asia-Pacific | ~-$720 billion | Electronics, semiconductors, apparel |
| USMCA (Mexico + Canada) | ~-$460 billion combined | Automotive, agriculture, energy |
| European Union | ~-$220 billion | Pharmaceuticals, machinery, autos |
| Middle East | ~-$25 billion | Energy, petrochemicals |
| Africa | ~-$12 billion | Minerals, energy, agricultural goods |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau Regional Trade Summary, Bureau of Economic Analysis 2026
The regional breakdown of the US trade deficit shows Asia-Pacific as the single largest contributor at an estimated $720 billion, a figure that combines the individually massive deficits with Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Japan, and South Korea into one geographic bloc. This concentration underscores why trade policy debates in 2026 increasingly frame the deficit as an “Asia problem” rather than a “China problem” specifically, since manufacturing relocation within the region has redistributed the imbalance without meaningfully shrinking its total size.
USMCA partners Mexico and Canada combine for an estimated $460 billion in deficit despite operating under a formal free trade agreement designed to balance North American commerce, though Canada’s individual deficit has narrowed by 21% as the broader tariff dispute between Washington and Ottawa has reduced overall bilateral trade volume rather than rebalanced it. The European Union’s roughly $220 billion deficit remains comparatively modest relative to its economic size, reflecting the EU’s stronger position in high-value manufacturing categories like pharmaceuticals and precision machinery where American consumers pay premium prices for goods with fewer readily available domestic substitutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which country has the largest trade deficit with the US in 2026?
Vietnam holds the largest bilateral trade deficit with the United States in 2026, at $210.93 billion over the twelve months through June, narrowly ahead of Mexico at $203.41 billion and Taiwan at $197.57 billion.
Is China still the largest source of the US trade deficit?
No. In 2026, China fell out of the top three for the first time in over two decades, trailing Vietnam, Mexico, and Taiwan, as tariff-driven supply chain relocation shifted electronics and apparel assembly to other Asian manufacturing hubs.
What is the total US trade deficit in 2026?
The US goods trade deficit alone exceeded $1 trillion annually in 2026, following a record $1.24 trillion goods deficit in 2025, while the monthly total goods and services balance stood at -$73.3 billion in June 2026.
Which country has the largest trade surplus with the US?
The Netherlands holds the largest US trade surplus at $76.56 billion annually, driven primarily by American energy and chemical exports routed through the port of Rotterdam for redistribution across Europe.
Why does the US have a services trade surplus but a goods deficit?
The United States maintains a services trade surplus of roughly $330 billion because it leads the world in financial services, software licensing, and intellectual property exports, while its goods deficit exceeds $1 trillion due to reduced domestic manufacturing capacity in consumer electronics, apparel, and automotive components.
Is Mexico or Canada the largest US trading partner in 2026?
Mexico is America’s largest trading partner by total trade volume in 2026, at approximately $850 billion, narrowly ahead of Canada at roughly $820 billion.
Why has Vietnam’s trade deficit with the US grown so much?
Vietnam’s trade deficit with the US has grown because manufacturers relocated electronics assembly, footwear, and textile production there to avoid higher tariffs imposed on goods originating directly from China, a pattern commonly referred to as tariff-driven supply chain rerouting.
What percentage of the US goods deficit comes from Asia-Pacific countries?
Asia-Pacific countries account for roughly 68% to 70% of the total US goods trade deficit in 2026, combining the individually large deficits with Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Japan, and South Korea into the largest regional contributor by a wide margin.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
