Even during a tough 2016, U.S. fluid power exports helped close the gap in the trade deficit. While U.S. fluid power imports dropped 8.2%, which just happens to nearly match the 8.8% drop in U.S. total fluid power shipments in 2016, U.S. fluid power exports only fell 2.1% during that same period. This translated into a 25.6% tightening of the U.S. fluid power trade deficit.
Overall in 2016, the U.S. fluid power industry sold $5.5 billion dollars in exported products and $7.0 billion dollars in imported products. Both exports and imports of fluid power products continue to grow every year, with imports outpacing exports since 1998, creating a trade deficit for the last 18 years. Over the last 5 years, U.S. fluid power exports have grown 17.8% and U.S. fluid power imports have grown 18.3%.
Mexico sits at the top of the major trade partners list for both imports and exports. Eight of the top 10 foreign trade partners are included in both lists. In fact, the top 10 foreign trade partners alone represent 73% of fluid power products exported from the U.S. and 87% of fluid power products imported into the U.S., as broken down in the pie charts. The U.S. exports fluid power products to 198 countries and imports fluid power products from 120 countries all together, meaning the vast majority of transactions happen between the top 10 trade partners.
