"God bless America" - UK’s largest export market bought £187 BN from us last year

Is it time for Starmer to be nicer to the US? And will David Lammy now eat humble (American) pie?

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024

Brexit Britain’s Top 30 export markets : Almost £¾ TRILLION of sales last year - mostly non-EU

In this next part in our UK exports series using the latest trade data, we reveal where Brexit Britain is now selling the most. And in the Top 30 export markets, less than one-third of UK overseas sales were to EU countries, according to latest official figures.

The 2023 data from the Office for National Statistics on Brexit Britain’s exports of goods and services worldwide make for interesting study. On Monday last week (04 Nov 2024) we published our research on the fastest-growing global markets for UK goods and services, which showed surprising results. Our report demonstrated that the non-EU market for British goods and services is growing significantly faster than the EU market.

This report was extensively featured on GB News last week

GB News - Britain's faster growing TV news channel - requested permission to use an advance copy of this report and our subsequent reports in this special five-part 'Brexports' series, and we were happy to co-operate both with their digital (website) and their broadcast teams.

Our colleague from CIBUK.Org, their Comms Director Ben Philips, was invited onto the top-rated Martin Daubney show on Friday and was able to comment extensively on our findings.

Today we put aside growth rates and reveal the latest figures for the UK’s Top 30 customers around the world for good and services, in terms of total export values last year (2023) alone.

Once again the EU does not come out well.

A Brexit Facts4EU.Org exports series
The independent UK selling to the world

PART I - Brexit Britain’s fastest growing export markets for goods and services, 2016 – 2024
PART II (This report) - Brexit Britain’s biggest customers last year (2023)
PART III - Post-Brexit, UK exports to Trump’s America grew 57% faster than exports to the EU
PART IV - UK now has EIGHT trade deals with US states - More to come in President Trump's America?
PART V - The future : Starmer's government fixated on pivoting back to the EU and missing a huge opportunity?

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Brexit Britain’s Top 30 global export markets in 2023

Value of UK’s sales of goods and services in 2023, in £’s billions

USA : £186.7 bn
Germany : £63.0 bn
Ireland : £57.7 bn
Netherlands : £52.5 bn
France : £44.6 bn
China : £33.3 bn
Switzerland : £30.2 bn
Belgium : £25.7 bn
Spain : £19.7 bn
Italy : £18.9 bn
Hong Kong : £16.9 bn
India : £16.1 bn
Canada : £15.8 bn
Australia : £14.9 bn
Singapore : £14.8 bn

Japan : £14.2 bn
United Arab Emirates : £13.3 bn
Saudi Arabia : £12.8 bn
Luxembourg : £11.7 bn
Sweden : £11.2 bn
Poland : £10.5 bn
South Korea : £9.9 bn
Turkey : £9.8 bn
Norway : £9.3 bn
Denmark : £8.3 bn
Brazil : £6.2 bn
Qatar : £5.6 bn
Nigeria : £5.1 bn
Gibraltar : £4.9 bn
South Africa : £4.5 bn

[Source : Office for National Statistics, Oct 2024.]

Only 11 in the Top 30 are EU27 countries

“Selling to the EU” – busting the myth still perpetuated by Rejoiners

To this day there are Rejoiners who still cite “exports to the EU” and claim ”the EU” as being the UK’s biggest export market. In reality it is no such thing. Sales to EU institutions (e.g. the EU Commission) are an infinitesimally small fraction of the UK’s sales to all EU27 countries. When a business in the UK exports goods or services, it normally sells to a business in an EU27 country, not “to the EU”.

When looking at the UK’s fastest-growing and largest export markets it is therefore logical to look at the exports to each country, which is what we have done in this five-part report.

The US is almost three times more important to the UK than the EU’s No.1 economy Germany

The USA remains the UK’s largest customer for goods and services, far and away bigger than any EU country including Germany. In the Top 30 as a whole there are only 11 EU countries, which should put to bed the idea that the UK can only sell within its own European region of the world.

Within these EU countries are the Netherlands and Belgium. Both of these countries have large ports (particularly Rotterdam and Antwerp) which means that their numbers are artificially inflated when it comes to UK goods exports. A significant amount of these are trans-shipped globally or are re-distributed throughout the EU. We still do not have definitive numbers for this. Some years ago HMRC estimated that around 5% of UK exports to these countries were for other destinations. We continue to believe this has been underestimated.

Observations

When the Government of Sir Keir Starmer is considering where to apply its efforts in encouraging British exports, it could do worse than to look at our chart above, which clearly shows the US being head and shoulders above any other countries - including those from the EU - in terms of total exports of goods and services last year.

This chart was extensively used - with our permission - by GB News last week because, as Martin Daubney says, "a picture paints a thousand words".

All of this is despite the fact that the UK has a much vaunted Free Trade Agreement with the EU, but not with the USA. Part of the reason for this is that the EU has always focused on goods rather than the UK's strength which is in services. The bulk of the UK's exports to the US have naturally been in the provision of services.

Subject to any major developments in the news agenda we plan to publish Parts III to V this week, in this special five-part 'Brexports to the US' series. We would therefore kindly request that readers who comment do so on the subject of this particular report. Many other issues will be covered in the subsequent reports we are publishing this week, when there will be ample opportunity to comment on the issues raised therein.

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Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 11 Nov 2024

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Reader Comments 8

1. Sparky , Monday, November 11, 2024, 06:34:

Interesting that the chart shows individual countries but the piece talks around the EU. Of the EU countries included in the top 30, trade is nearly 70% more than the USA.
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The chart does demonstrate how small trade with Australia and CPTPP countries actually is.
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It will be interesting to see what Trumps election will mean for UK exports.

2. Ashley Great Britain , Monday, November 11, 2024, 07:17:

1 sparky.
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Got your Monday morning glasses on.
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EU nations have a natural affiliation to buy more from each other. The Uk is seen as competition even when we were a member. We now have much more scope to buy and sell with them and the rest of the world.
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Remainer/Rejoiners will hate the fact that Trump is soon to be president but he is the best thing for the UK. 20% Tariffs may be a thing for some nations and trading group's but it won't be for the UK. Many in the US have been chomping at the bit to expand trade between US/UK, as have we, and now the doors are opening.

3. John Jones , Monday, November 11, 2024, 08:02:

This is a good analysis.
It confirms what I've long thought - trade with the US is & always was vastly important - albeit we don't have a free trade deal - this is telling - outwith of Brexit, it's to be hoped that Trump doesn't have to put tariffs on UK services!
The other killer fact confirms that we really only trade with 6-7 EU countries ( in fact we mostly trade with 4) - this completely debunks the idea of a rich 420m person market.
Little old UK with its c. 70-75m people trade with the US (330m people) and the EU ( c. 210 rich people). The rest is noise.
I've also read that the Rotterdam effect has a potentially even larger distortion of c. 8% - ie it underestimates our exports of mainly goods to the EU by 8% not 5%.

4. LuxuryBalloon , Monday, November 11, 2024, 08:44:

Lets hope Trump does not find out we have a trade surplus with the USA … he does not like the USA having trade deficits with other countries.

5. Have You Wondered , Monday, November 11, 2024, 09:36:

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I'm not sure of the relevance of todays article.
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This article appears to hinge on these 2 sentences.
"Sales to EU institutions (e.g. the EU Commission) are an infinitesimally small fraction of the UK’s sales to all EU27 countries. When a business in the UK exports goods or services, it normally sells to a business in an EU27 country, not “To the EU”.
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Why use figures for individual EU member nations and sales to the EU Commission (?) figures when in every day parlance most refer to the member nations as 'THE EU'? As indeed the next Part III refers.
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Indeed, this peice today might seem superfluous? The next part - PART III - Post-Brexit, UK exports to Trump’s America grew 57% faster than exports TO THE EU - will be more relevant and shed more light?
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6. John Jones , Monday, November 11, 2024, 10:17:

5. Have You Wondered
"...To this day there are Rejoiners who still cite “exports to the EU” and claim ”the EU” as being the UK’s biggest export market. In reality it is no such thing. Sales to EU institutions (e.g. the EU Commission) are an infinitesimally small fraction of the UK’s sales to all EU27 countries..."
Actually, to be fair to facts4eu - it's the above sentence with which jars a bit.
Most informed commentators know it's the member states to whom we export & import.
I make the point again - the EU itself say's it has a wealthy population of c. 420m people - I vehemently disagree with this - if you look at the UK trade figures in today's article - it becomes apparent , very quickly that the UK trades at scale with only about 6-8 EU countries -end of.

7. John Collins , Monday, November 11, 2024, 10:29:

John Collins
Luxury Balloon, I think I am correct in saying that USA trade statistics show the USA having a trade surplus with us. That tells you something about the accuracy of trade statistics. It is possible that Trump may be less sensitive to service imports than manufacturing imports.
Regards

8. NH , Monday, November 11, 2024, 10:49:

1. Sparky "trade is nearly 70% more than the USA."
As usual you ignore the fact that we were in the EU for over 50 years, which restricted our trade and relations with the rest of the world, and we have only been out of the EU for a few years.
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Much of our trade is misleading. The UK is the world's larges exporter of aircraft parts and in theory the EU is our largest market but in practice this is not true. We export a large number of jet engines to the EU but the EU does not make the purchasing decision, they just offer their customers a choice of engines. The sales decision is made by the airline and the vast majority of these are outside of the EU. The profitable part of the sale is the service contract which is made between the airline and the manufacturer. Unfortunately as Alitalia seems to be entering administration that's one less EU customer to target.
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If you buy a mobile phone it will almost certainly contain UK parts and services. Design and manufacture of that phone will likely involve USA, UK, Taiwan, S Korea, Japan, China and the Netherlands. If the UK wants to prosper in the modern world it's essential to have good relations with as much of the world as possible and not be restricted by a region that is becoming increasingly more protectionist.

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