The significance of the United States as the principal buyer of exports from the European Union (EU) has clearly increased over the past decade. In 2023, the EU exported goods worth approximately 503.8 billion euros to the US, accounting for 19.7 percent of all EU exports, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on the basis of data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat. This is the highest proportion of EU exports to the US since 2022, when it was 19.8 percent. Over the past decade, the share of transatlantic trade from the EU to the US has increased significantly, rising from 13.8 percent in 2013.
In contrast, the share of China as a market for EU goods has only slightly increased over the decade, and has even decreased since 2020. In 2023, the EU exported goods worth around 223.4 billion euros to China, accounting for 8.7 percent of all EU exports. In 2020, this share was 10.5 percent, and has since declined. The share of EU exports to China in 2023 was only slightly higher than the level of 2013, when it was 7.6 percent.
Looking at the most-exported goods in 2023, the importance of the United States as a market for some sectors is particularly great. For example, a third (34.7 percent) of all pharmaceutical exports from the EU went to the US in 2023. In the “other vehicles” category, which mainly includes aircraft and spacecraft, but also ships and rail vehicles, 23.3 percent of all EU exports went to the US. For machinery, it was 21.5 percent.
On the other hand, China has lost market share in the import of goods into the EU, while the share of imports from the US has risen to a new high. However, China remains the most important supplier of imports to the EU: in 2023, the value of goods imported from China was around 520.4 billion euros, and its share of all EU imports was 20.6 percent. The share of China in the EU’s import volume has, however, been similar to that of the exports since 2020, with a decline from 22.4 percent in 2020 to the current level.
In contrast, the share of the US in the EU’s imports has increased and reached a new high of 13.8 percent in 2023, with the EU importing goods worth around 347.2 billion euros from the US. In 2013, this share was 10.1 percent.
Among the most-imported goods, the dependence on China was particularly high in the area of electronics in 2023, with around half of all imports of electrical equipment (56.3 percent) and of data processing machines, electronic and optical products (47.0 percent) coming from China. For machinery, it was 28.1 percent. The imports from the US made up a particularly large part of the import volume of the EU in the category of other vehicles, such as aircraft, spacecraft, and ships (42.3 percent), as well as in the pharmaceutical sector (35.5 percent).
The EU’s external trade with the US, i.e., the sum of exports and imports, was 851.0 billion euros in 2023, significantly higher than the external trade with China (743.9 billion euros). In the years 2020 and 2021, the EU had more trade with China than with the US.
In its trade with the US, the EU had a trade surplus of around 156.6 billion euros in 2023, exporting more to the US than it imported. Over the past decade, this trade surplus has almost doubled, rising from 81.3 billion euros in 2013.
On the other hand, the EU’s trade deficit with China is much larger, at 297.0 billion euros in 2023. Ten years ago, it was still 104.2 billion euros.
The EU exported goods worth 2.557.0 billion euros in 2023 and imported goods worth around 2.522.6 billion euros, resulting in a trade surplus of around 34.5 billion euros. In 2022, the EU’s record imports of around 3.006.2 billion euros had led to a trade deficit of 436.0 billion euros, mainly due to the sharp increase in the value of oil and gas imports from 257.2 billion euros in 2021 to 555.4 billion euros in 2022, according to the Federal Statistical Office.