U.S. Goods Trade With South Korea (Exports + Imports)

## What this measures

Total U.S. trade in goods with South Korea: exports to it plus imports from it, in billions of current dollars, for each calendar year since 1985 (where the Census file has the country). Exports on a Census basis plus general imports, not seasonally adjusted, summed over the twelve months of each calendar year, from the Census country file (census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/country.xlsx).

## Why it matters

Total trade is the usual way to rank trading partners: it counts both what the U.S. sells and what it buys, so a partner with a large deficit and one with a large surplus rank by the size of the relationship.

## How to read it

Nominal dollars, so compare shares (trade.us_partner.share.*) across decades. Each observation carries the export and import totals separately.

## What it does not say

Goods only, not services. Country codes are today's: Germany includes West Germany before 1991, and Vietnam starts in 1992. Imports are counted by country of origin, so goods assembled in one country from another's parts count for the assembler.

## Source

U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Trade in Goods by Country (FT-900). Public domain.