How dependent is the United States on Japan?

A product has a dominant supplier when a single country sells more than 50% of what is bought of it; we flag it separately above 75%.

• Japan sells 58.5% of what the world exports of photographic chemicals; next come South Korea (11.4%), Taiwan (5.5%) and China (3.7%). The rest of the world exported 5.2 times what the United States buys from Japan.
• Japan sells 28.3% of what the world exports of photographic plates and flat film; next come China (21.1%), Germany (13.8%) and Belgium (8.6%). The rest of the world exported 13.9 times what the United States buys from Japan.
• Japan sells 36.8% of what the world exports of pianos; next come Germany (20.1%), Indonesia (14.1%) and China (7.8%). The rest of the world exported 6.9 times what the United States buys from Japan.
• Japan sells 32.1% of what the world exports of synthetic filament tow; next come China (11.6%), South Korea (11.2%) and Thailand (8.6%). The rest of the world exported 12.4 times what the United States buys from Japan.

Exports from the rest of the world already have buyers; the figure shows scale, not availability.

The United States is Japan’s 1st-largest customer, with 19% of its exports.

• Trade between the United States and Japan
• Who does the United States rely on?
• Who does Japan rely on?
• Dependence of the United States on Canada
• Dependence of the United States on China
• Dependence of the United States on Mexico
• Dependence of the United States on Ireland
• Dependence of the United States on Chile
• Dependence of the United States on Switzerland
• Dependence of the United States on Brazil
• Dependence of the United States on South Africa
• Dependence of the United States on Indonesia
• Dependence of the United States on Australia
• Dependence of the United States on Vietnam
• Dependence of the United States on Colombia
• Dependence of the United States on India
• Dependence of the United States on Peru
• Dependence of the United States on the Dominican Republic
• Dependence of the United States on Thailand
• Trade profile of the United States
• Trade profile of Japan
• All countries

Sources and licenses

• CEPII BACI · Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
• Natural Earth · Public domain

Methodology

The data come from CEPII BACI (Etalab 2.0 licence), which reconciles what the exporting and the importing country report, in current USD, FOB. Data up to 2024.

Dependence is the share of a country’s imports (or exports) that each partner accounts for. It does not measure whether a product has a substitute or how much it would cost to change supplier.

The concentration index (HHI) adds up the square of each partner’s share, in percent: it runs from 0 to 10,000. Its equivalent is 10,000 ÷ HHI, the number of partners of the same size that would give that value.

Products are HS4 headings of the 1992 nomenclature (some combine different goods), with a floor of $1 million per product and country.

The EU is the 27 current members in every year; the United Kingdom is outside the EU throughout the series.

Re-exports: countries that act as redistribution hubs carry their notice and the figures are not corrected.