For the first time since at least 2002, Europe is now a bigger market for U.S. exports than Asia, exposing the risk that a trade war with Europe poses to U.S. companies and their workers as President Trump presses to take over Greenland.
It is possible the United States and Europe reached some sort of arrangement Wednesday though Trump did not announce any details and said he was unsure whether Denmark, which controls Greenland, was aware of any deal.
There were many reasons for Trump to back away from military force and from imposing tariffs, as he apparently did once arriving at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:
What the White House might not have known is that Europe accounted for 28% of all U.S. exports through October, the latest U.S. Census Bureau data available while Asia accounted for 27%. USMCA partners Mexico and Canada accounted for 31%.
That is a significant change from when Trump first entered office, before he initiated the trade war with China. In 2017, Asia accounted for 31% of U.S. exports to 22% for Europe, with the then-NAFTA trade partners Mexico and Canada accounting for 34%.
Both Asia and North America have lost three percentage points while Europe has gained six percentage points since 2017.
Two of those six percentage points were gained during the presidency of Joe Biden, while four have been gained in the first nine months of Trump’s second term, from February through October.
One pivotal reason for Europe’s gain is the uncertainty Trump has created with his trade policies and other decisions. His quest for Greenland is but one example. The impact is most clearly seen in the price of gold, which advanced sharply last year, its best year in decades.
That is traditionally a sign of investors seeking a safe haven in stormy weather. Increasingly, central banks the world over are increasing their gold reserves as they look for that same safe haven. That desire to hold gold is seen as a sign of diminished confidence in the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Consequently, U.S. exports of gold have accelerated greatly this year, with the three fourths headed to Switzerland and the United Kingdom, accelerating the growth in Europe as a market for U.S. goods.
Another factor has been increasing U.S. exports of LNG to Europe to counter its boycott of natural gas from Russia, after its invasion of Ukraine, a war that rages on yet.
The leading U.S. exports to Europe through October of last year, accounting for 44.19% of the total, were:
- gold
- civilian aircraft
- oil
- vaccines, plasma and other blood “fractions”
- liquid natural gas
- hormones and steroids
- medicines in pill form
Because of U.S. gold exports in 2025, the differential in growth rates by region is stark. Through October of last year, U.S. exports to Europe are up 21.44% from the same 10 months of 2024. U.S. exports to Asia are up 0.40% and those to North America are down 2.55%. U.S. exports to the world are up 5.52%. (2025 U.S. imports from Europe have grown 14.17% when compared to the same period of 2024.)
In dollars, the total export numbers through October look like this:
North America, $562.14 billion
Europe, $509.78 billion
Asia, $499.97 billion.
Annual trade data will be released next month, though the U.S. Census Bureau has yet to release a date, still playing catch up from government shutdown last summer.
Since Trump took office in 2017, U.S. exports to Europe are up 274% while those of Asia are up 210.20%. U.S. exports to Mexico and Canada are up 28.77% and to the world, 42.49%. (The United States’ two largest export markets are Mexico and Canada, despite the slower growth rate.)
While U.S. exports to Europe account for 28% of all exports to the world, the U.S. deficit with Europe accounts for slightly less than 20% of the U.S. deficit with the world. Stated another way, U.S. trade with Europe is more balanced than U.S. trade with the world.
Indeed, the United States has a trade surplus with a number of its larger European trade partners:
- the United Kingdom, on pace to a record, with a U.S. surplus of $24.79 billion
- the Netherlands, also on pace to a record, at $49.48 billion, though it is largely a transshipment hub for the rest of the continent
- Belgium
- Spain, also at a record pace
- Turkey, with the U.S. on track for its first surplus since 2016
- Lithuania
- Greece
- Ukraine
- Luxembourg
The United Kingdom has been the top U.S. export market in Europe for all but three years since 2002 and was narrowly ahead of the Netherlands through October. As with the Netherlands, it also serves as a transshipment hub. It is also a destination for U.S. gold shipments last year.
The Netherlands ranked first the previous two years and three of the previous four.
Switzerland passed France, Italy and Belgium to rank third among U.S. export markets, largely due to those gold shipments.
France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Turkey round out the top 10.
At No. 11 is Poland, the top-ranked former Eastern European member of the Soviet bloc. It has seen its exports from the United States increase a little more slowly this year, up a still-robust 22.47%, but has seen its exports grow 1,946% from 2002, seven times the rate for the rest of Europe.
Europe’s rise as a destination for U.S. goods is not a curiosity on a spreadsheet; it is a wake-up call that trade policy decisions now reverberate more loudly across the Atlantic than the Pacific.
As Europe and Washington weigh new tariffs, sanctions or even symbolic fights over territory while trying to reach an accommodation, it’s clear U.S. exporters are increasingly tethered to European demand. A trade war with Europe would not just test diplomatic ties with long-standing allies, it would put at risk the very markets that have quietly become the most important engine of U.S. export growth in recent years.
