Trade as a share of GDP: the USMCA partners, China and the world
This chart shows exports plus imports of goods and services as a share of GDP for Mexico, Canada, the United States and China since 1970, with the World Bank’s world aggregate as a benchmark. All values are the World Bank’s published World Development Indicators figures; the ratio measures how exposed each economy is to trade, not which partners it trades with.
What does it show?
Mexico's trade equals 80% of its GDP (2025) and Canada's 64%, against 25% for the United States (2024), while the world ratio, 57% in 2024, is no higher than in 2008 (60%).
Methodology
World Bank World Development Indicators series NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS, Trade (% of GDP): the sum of exports and imports of goods and services divided by gross domestic product, from national statistical offices and central banks, OECD national accounts files and World Bank staff estimates. Values are the World Bank's own, rounded to one decimal; nothing is recomputed. The window starts in 1970, the first year the United States and the World aggregate are both published. The World line is the World Bank's aggregate; a latest year reported by fewer than 90% of the most economies ever reporting is left off it, because the missing economies move the aggregate (the 2025 World value, 68.5%, rests on 138 of 217 economies, without the United States or Japan, against 172 for 2024). Gross trade counts imported parts again when they are re-exported, so the ratio can exceed 100% and runs higher for economies inside cross-border supply chains; it measures exposure to trade, not the value added by it or the weight of any one partner. Trade and GDP are both at current prices, so the ratio also moves with commodity prices and exchange rates, not only with the volume of trade. Values for recent years are revised as national accounts are revised.