By Arthur Dos Santos, Masai Gordon, and Adam Prince
Before COVID-19, few Americans thought twice about where their goods came from. However, when store shelves emptied and exports slowed, the fragility of the global trade system became impossible to ignore. We explore how COVID-19 affected U.S. imports and exports. Pre-pandemic, global trade was experiencing steady growth, shaped by decades of increasing globalization, technological advancements, and expanding international agreements. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, global trade skyrocketed, with the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and major trade deals like NAFTA, which created a free trade zone across North America. The U.S. became increasingly involved in global supply chains. In the early 2010s, trade continued to grow, but new tensions arose. The U.S. saw rising trade deficits and growing concern over reliance on foreign production. Trade levels remained high, with the U.S. being one of the world’s top importers and exporters.
Leading up to the pandemic, U.S. trade was relatively complex but stable. However, in early 2020, the pandemic caused massive supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and a sudden drop in demand. The pandemic didn’t just disrupt trade, it disrupted the whole economy at a global scale. Researching the effects of COVID-19 on U.S. trade is crucial to understanding the fragility and resilience of the global economy. Studying these effects provides insight into how trade disruptions can affect the domestic economy, including employment, production, and supply. While this analysis focuses on the United States, it offers a window into broader global trade patterns and how they respond to global disruptions. These insights can inform trade policies and help businesses better prepare for future crises.
Economist Nadia Rocha explains that studying the impacts of COVID-19 on trade is important, noting that we can “draw lessons from the pandemic experience and propose steps to better prepare for the next emergency” (Rocha and Ruta 2022).
Data Analysis
Figures 1 and 2 show monthly value of U.S. imports and exports and monthly value of U.S. trade balance, respectively, in the United States from 2016 to 2025. Data comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. We first examined the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the monthly value of the United States’ imports and exports. The United States exported $207.9 billion and $208.3 billion worth of goods and services in January and February of 2020, respectively. In the months that followed, however, total exports experienced a dramatic decrease. In March 2020, total exports decreased to $188.2 billion, representing a 9.64% decrease. The United States experienced its biggest COVID-induced decrease in total exports in April of 2020, with the value falling to $150.3 billion. This fall represents a 20.16% decrease). Total exports decreased by $4.5 billion in May of 2020. In every month since May of 2020, the United States’ total exports have grown fairly consistently.
The United States imported $251.7 billion and $249.2 billion worth of goods and services in January and February of 2020, respectively. Like total exports, total imports experienced a substantial decrease throughout the ensuing months. Total imports experienced a substantial decrease in March of 2020, with the value dropping to $231.9 billion. This represents a decrease in value of 6.92% (Figure 1). Similarly to total exports, total imports experienced its largest COVID-induced decrease in April of 2020, with the value falling to $203.4 billion. This represents a decrease of 12.23%. Total exports decreased by $2.6 billion in May 2020. Since May 2020, both total imports and total exports have experienced a relatively stable increase. In January 2025, the value of the United States’ total exports was $270.5 billion, while the value of total imports was $401.2 billion.
We then examined the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the monthly value of the United States’ trade balance. The U.S. trade balance increased in the months leading up to the pandemic, showing signs of potential long-term growth. The U.S. trade balance was -$43.8 billion in January of 2020, and increased to -$40.9 billion in February of 2020. This represents an increase of 6.64%. However, the U.S. trade balance never recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Instead, it continued on a steady decline, decreasing to a low of -$130.6 billion in January of 2025, which represents a decrease of 219.66%.
We find that the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected the monthly value of the United States’ total exports and total imports, as well as the monthly value of the trade balance. The monthly value of the United State’s trade balance temporarily increased in the early months of 2020 because total imports in the U.S. decreased at a faster rate than total exports, which caused the deficit to shrink. During the COVID era, the monthly value of total imports decreased by as much as 12.23%, while the monthly value of total exports decreased by as much as 20.16%. These decreases can be attributed to global supply chain disruptions, many of which came as a result of lockdowns. It is also possible that there was reduced consumer demand worldwide, both for domestic and imported goods. The decrease in demand can be attributed to lockdowns and economic uncertainty, which caused consumer demand for non-essential goods to decrease. Hayakawa and Mukunoki (2021) investigated how international trade changed over time, concluding that there were “heterogeneous effects across industries. The negative effects on non-essential, durable products persist for a long time, whereas positive effects in industries providing medical products were observed.” The authors conclude that some products experienced more active trade during the pandemic than other types of goods.
Conclusion
Our analysis shows that COVID-19 caused major disruptions to U.S. trade, highlighting the fragility of global supply chains and volatility of consumer demand. Although import and export volumes began to recover steadily after mid-2020, the U.S. trade balance continued to widen, reaching a record low by January 2025. This persistent imbalance suggests that recovery in imports outweighed exports, demonstrating an increased reliance on foreign production during recovery. This shift could have resulted from domestic supply issues, delayed manufacturing restarts, or faster production recovery in other countries. While our research demonstrates the broader impact of the pandemic on U.S. trade, it leaves out patterns specific to certain industries or any regional differences. Exploring how different sectors and trading partners were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is important and future research could offer a more precise understanding of global trade during systemic shocks.
References
- Bureau of Economic Analysis. 2024. “International Trade in Goods and Services | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).” Bea.gov. April 4, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/intl-trade-investment/international-trade-goods-and-services.
- Hayakawa, Kazunobu, and Hiroshi Mukunoki. 2021. “The Impact of COVID-19 on International Trade: Evidence from the First Shock.” Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 60 (101135): 101135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2021.101135.
- Rocha, Nadia, and Michele Ruta. 2022. “Strengthening Pandemic Defenses Will Require Deeper Cooperation on Trade.” World Bank Blogs. 2022. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/developmenttalk/strengthening-pandemic-defenses-will-require-deeper-cooperation-trade.