NAFTA Trade Continues to Grow

Illustration by Alex Covarrubias

Though the world economy is suffering, through September 2008—the government’s most current statistics—the value of US surface trade with Canada and Mexico was up $58.8 billion over 2007, a boost of 8.8%.

Focusing on September alone, trade using surface transportation between the US and its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners was $71.8 billion, higher by 7.5% than in 2007. The surface modes monitored in the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) trade report are truck, rail and pipeline. Overall, imports from the NAFTA countries declined by 4.8% year over year in September, while exports grew by 16.1%.

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