U.S. Imports: Most Come from the EU, Mexico, Canada, and China: Intellectual Property Concerns

   

     As the Trump tariff wars, or fiascos if you prefer, get restrained by U.S. law and begin returning funds to affected businesses, I saw the following graph and thought it would be a good idea to analyze U.S. imports a bit.

     My guess is that the way the Trump administration sees it is that since we buy so much from the EU, that should give us some leverage over them. One could also see it the other way around: that since we are dependent on the EU for so much of our imports, it gives them some leverage over us. Both are likely true.

     China, a source of 9.9% of U.S. imports, has long been accused of intellectual property rights violations for stealing U.S. corporate secrets. Now, another communist country, Vietnam, a country that provides an outsized 4.7% of U.S. imports and is 6^th in U.S. imports by country, has been accused of violating intellectual property rights, according to a new report. Thus, we now get a total of 14.6% of our imports from countries credibly accused of intellectual property violations. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued the report, which has both a priority watch list and a lesser watch list. The priority watch list contains the usual suspects, including India, China, Venezuela, and Russia, but also surprisingly Chile and Indonesia. Reuters summarizes the lists below.

     Argentina and Mexico were recently removed from the priority watch list. The lesser watch list contains 19 trading partners, of which the EU was recently added. I suspect that is due to the Trump administration controlling the office and supporting Trump’s personal tiffs with the EU. The EU Parliament’s trade chief recently referred to the U.S. as an unreliable trading partner. Both sides are accusing the other of violating the agreement signed in July 2025 when the EU agreed to erase tariffs on US industrial goods in exchange for a 15% tariff ceiling on most EU products. The EU complained that the U.S. expanded a 50% aluminum and steel tariffs in August to include more products. The European Parliament has approved the deal but has yet to ratify it.

 

 

References:

 

EU Parliament trade chief calls Trump tariff threat unacceptable. Jorge Valero. Bloomberg. May 1, 2026. EU Parliament trade chief calls Trump tariff threat unacceptable

US names Vietnam as top concern country in intellectual property rights report. Kanishka Singh. Reuters. April 30, 2026. US names Vietnam as top concern country in intellectual property rights report | Reuters