Data

Difference in the value of goods exported to and imported by the US

About this data

Source
IMF (2017)processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 14, 2018
Date range
2016–2016
Unit
Current US$ (in millions)

Sources and processing

IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics

This data set consists of differences between the value of goods that each country reports exporting to the US, and the value of goods that the US reports importing from the same countries. For example, for China, the figure in the chart corresponds to "Value of merchandise imports in US from China" minus "Value of merchandise exports from China to the US". In all cases, values correspond to current US dollars. Asymmetries arise for different reasons, including the fact that exports are usually recorded in FOB prices, while imports are recorded in CIF prices.

Retrieved on
March 14, 2018
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
IMF (2017). Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS).

This data set consists of differences between the value of goods that each country reports exporting to the US, and the value of goods that the US reports importing from the same countries. For example, for China, the figure in the chart corresponds to "Value of merchandise imports in US from China" minus "Value of merchandise exports from China to the US". In all cases, values correspond to current US dollars. Asymmetries arise for different reasons, including the fact that exports are usually recorded in FOB prices, while imports are recorded in CIF prices.

Retrieved on
March 14, 2018
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
IMF (2017). Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS).

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Difference in the value of goods exported to and imported by the US”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from IMF. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.html [online resource] (archived on May 11, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

IMF (2017) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

IMF (2017) – processed by Our World in Data. “Difference in the value of goods exported to and imported by the US” [dataset]. IMF, “Direction of Trade Statistics” [original data]. Retrieved May 13, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.html (archived on May 11, 2026).

Quick download

Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.

Data API

Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.

Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/difference-in-the-value-of-goods-exported-to-and-imported-by-the-us.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear