Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 26th of May 2020 to The Sounding Line.

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Around this time last year, we published an article detailing the companies that imported and exported the most product (by volume) into the US in 2018. The numbers for 2019 are finally in, so let’s take a look.

Via Statista.com:

The top importers to the US aren’t too surprising: Walmart and other big box stores filled with cheap manufactured goods, mostly from China. Compared to 2018, the top importers remain identical with the exception of new entrant Ashley Furniture, a manufacturer and importer of furniture.

The top exporter in 2019 was Koch Industries which produces pulp, paper, chemicals, fertilizers, energy products, and other commodities. The remaining top exporters are all involved in commodity businesses, many of them recycling and paper. As we noted last year, the dirty truth is that America’s largest export (by volume) remains our recycling. Put differently, our most voluminous imports are cheap manufactured goods from countries like China and our most voluminous export is essentially the empty boxes those items came in.

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