The World's Biggest Market

Measured in US dollars at market exchange rates, the United States produced about $30.8 trillion of goods and services in 2025, according to IMF estimates. That is roughly 26% of everything the world produced.¹ China came second at about $19.6 trillion. The 27 countries of the European Union, taken together, produced about $21.2 trillion.¹

The gap to the next single countries is wide. Germany produced about $5.0 trillion in 2025, Japan about $4.4 trillion, the United Kingdom $4.0 trillion and India $3.9 trillion. The IMF projects the US economy will pass $32 trillion in 2026.¹

There is another way to compare economies. Prices for haircuts, rent or rice are much lower in China and India than in the US, so the same dollar buys more there. Adjusting for this gives a measure called purchasing power parity (PPP). On that basis China is the largest economy, with about 19.6% of world output in 2025, against 14.6% for the US.¹ Both measures are useful: market rates show buying power on world markets, while PPP is closer to local living standards.

Americans are also rich on average. US output per person was about $90,000 in 2025, compared with about $60,400 in Germany, $47,100 across the EU, $36,000 in Japan and $14,000 in China.¹ US growth has also been steady for a large, mature economy: real GDP grew 2.1% in 2025, faster than the EU's 1.6% and Germany's 0.2%, though slower than China's 5.0% and India's 7.6%.¹

Part of the story is a culture of starting things. Americans filed a record 5.67 million applications to form new businesses in 2025, up from about 3.5 million in 2019, before the pandemic.¹³ Not every application becomes a company that hires workers, but the number shows how many people try.

Nominal GDP in 2025, converted to US dollars at market exchange rates. The EU is shown as one bloc for comparison; Germany is also counted inside it.

Exchange rates move these numbers. When the dollar rises, other economies look smaller in dollar terms even if nothing has changed at home, which is why the IMF also publishes PPP figures.¹

The US dollar is the world's main reserve currency: the money that central banks hold to pay for imports, defend their own currencies or survive a crisis. In the first quarter of 2026, 57.1% of the world's allocated foreign exchange reserves were held in dollars. The euro came second with 20.0%, the Japanese yen had 5.4% and the Chinese renminbi 2.0%. Total reserves were $13.1 trillion.²

That share has slowly drifted down, from about 71% in 1999 to 56.4% at the end of 2025, before ticking up in early 2026.² Much of that space went not to the euro but to the renminbi and a mix of smaller currencies, such as the Canadian and Australian dollars, which together held about 10% of reserves in 2025.²

In day-to-day markets the dollar's role is even larger. Currency trading averaged $9.6 trillion a day in April 2025, and the dollar was on one side of 89.2% of all trades, up from 88.4% in 2022.³ Because it is so widely traded, it works as a bridge: a bank swapping Korean won for Brazilian reais often goes through dollars. The dollar is also used for about 60% of foreign-currency debt issued around the world, and roughly half of all US banknotes, around $1 trillion, are held outside the country.⁴

This brings real benefits. Because foreigners want dollars and dollar bonds, the US government and US companies can usually borrow in their own currency at lower cost, and Americans rarely worry about exchange rates when they buy oil or sell abroad. Economists often call this the dollar's "exorbitant privilege." There is a flip side. Strong demand can keep the dollar expensive, which makes US exports cost more, and decisions by the Federal Reserve on interest rates spread quickly to countries that owe money in dollars.

Behind the dollar stand the world's largest capital markets. In 2025 the US stock market was worth $68.9 trillion, or 43.7% of the global total of $157.8 trillion. US bond markets held 38.1% of the world's debt securities, about $61.2 trillion.⁵ Companies from around the world list shares in New York, and investors buy US Treasury bonds as a safe place to park money.

This system has deep roots. Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary, insisted that the new country repay its Revolutionary War debts in full, and in 1791 he set up the First Bank of the United States.¹⁷ Building a reputation for paying debts on time is one reason investors still trust US government bonds today.

Share of allocated official foreign exchange reserves held in each currency, end of each year, 1999 to 2025.

The dollar's share has fallen by about 15 percentage points since 1999, but no single rival has replaced it. The euro's share in 2025 was close to where it started, and the renminbi has stayed near 2%.²

Shares also move with exchange rates, because reserves are measured in dollars. The IMF found that about half of the dollar's small rise in early 2026 came simply from the dollar strengthening against other major currencies.²

The United States is the world's largest importer of goods. In 2025 it bought $3.51 trillion of merchandise from abroad, 13.2% of world imports, well ahead of China's $2.58 trillion.⁶ It is also the largest trader in services such as finance, software, travel and film: US services exports reached $1.21 trillion in 2025, 12.7% of the world total.⁶ If the EU is counted as a single unit, though, its services trade is larger.⁶

Counting goods and services together, US exports were $3.43 trillion in 2025 and imports $4.33 trillion, leaving a deficit of $901.5 billion. The country ran a large deficit in goods but a surplus of $339.5 billion in services.⁷ Services exports grew most in business services, charges for the use of intellectual property such as software and patents, and financial services.⁷

The largest goods deficits in 2025 were with the EU ($218.8 billion), China ($202.1 billion), Mexico ($196.9 billion) and Vietnam ($178.2 billion). The gap with China shrank by $93.4 billion in a single year, while the deficits with Taiwan and Vietnam grew.⁷

The EU is the largest trading partner as a bloc, while Mexico and Canada, America's neighbors and partners in the USMCA trade agreement, are the top single countries.⁸ Trade with China has shrunk fast. US imports from China fell 29% in 2025, and China's share of US imports dropped from 13.8% to 9.3% in one year, while imports from Taiwan, Vietnam, India and other Asian economies rose.⁶

The rules behind this trade were largely shaped at the end of the Second World War. In July 1944, delegates from 44 nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.¹⁴ In 1947, 23 nations meeting in Geneva agreed on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which cut tariffs and set trade rules for almost fifty years until the World Trade Organization replaced it in 1995.¹⁴

Other currencies were pegged to the dollar, and the dollar to gold, until August 15, 1971, when President Nixon ended the dollar's convertibility into gold.¹⁵ The US remains the IMF's largest shareholder, with about 16.5% of votes. Because major decisions need 85%, it can block them on its own.¹⁶

Trade policy has changed sharply since 2025. Citing national emergencies, the administration used a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), to impose a 25% tariff on most imports from Canada and Mexico, 10% on most imports from China, and a "reciprocal" tariff of at least 10% on imports from all trading partners.²⁴ On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.²⁴

Other tariffs followed under different laws. By August 2026, after new Section 301 tariffs replaced a temporary tariff that expired on July 24, the average statutory US tariff rate was 11.0%, according to Yale's Budget Lab.²³

Total US trade in goods (exports plus imports) with the largest partners in 2025, Census basis. The EU is shown as one bloc.

Most partners sell more to the US than they buy. The United Kingdom was an exception in 2025: the US exported about $97 billion of goods there and imported about $65 billion.⁸

The US is a leading food exporter. American farm exports were worth about $171 billion in 2025, down from a peak in 2022 as world crop prices fell and a strong dollar made US goods more expensive. The top products were corn, soybeans, tree nuts such as almonds, dairy products and beef.¹² Soybean exports fell in 2025, while corn, tree nut and dairy exports grew.¹²

The biggest change of the past twenty years is in energy. Thanks to the shale revolution, which combined horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing to release oil and gas from dense rock, the US has been the world's largest crude oil producer since it overtook Russia in 2018. In 2025 it pumped a record 13.6 million barrels a day, about 40% more than Russia (9.9 million) or Saudi Arabia (9.6 million).⁹ Almost half came from the Permian region of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico.⁹

The US has also been the largest producer of natural gas since 2009. In 2023, the latest year with full world data, it produced 104 billion cubic feet a day, 75% more than Russia, the second-largest producer.¹⁰ A growing share now leaves the country as liquefied natural gas (LNG), gas cooled to a liquid and shipped in tankers. US LNG exports rose 26% in 2025 to 15.1 billion cubic feet a day, 26% of the world total, ahead of Qatar and Australia.¹¹

Energy has changed America's position in the world. For decades the country worried about depending on imported oil. Today it is a major energy exporter. LNG shipped to Europe and Asia gives buyers an alternative to other suppliers, including Russia, and gives Washington another tool in diplomacy.