US is Germany’s Leading Trade Partner in 2024

In the first six months of 2024, Europe’s largest economy did some EUR 127 billion worth of trade with the United States compared to just under EUR 122 billion with China. That’s according to calculations done by Reuters news agency based on preliminary German government statistics.

China has been Germany’s largest trading partner, followed by the US, in the last eight straight years. German exports to the US were up 3.3 percent. Meanwhile, while German imports from the US declined by roughly the same percentage, the drop in imports from China was much greater at nearly 8 percent.

There were a variety of reasons for the shift, the foreign trade expert for the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), Lola Machleid, told Reuters, including “the desire for greater diversification in industrial supply chains.”