The main export of the United States is petroleum. When you combine crude oil, refined petroleum products, and petroleum gas, energy products account for over $320 billion in annual exports, making them the single largest category of goods leaving the country. Beyond energy, the U.S. exports roughly $1.9 trillion in physical goods and another $1.15 trillion in services each year, spanning everything from cars and jet engines to financial consulting and software licensing.
Petroleum Dominates Physical Exports
In 2024, crude petroleum was the top individual export at $124 billion, followed closely by refined petroleum at $115 billion and petroleum gas at $84.8 billion. Together, these three categories made up roughly 17% of all U.S. goods exports. That share has grown sharply over the past decade as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) unlocked massive oil and natural gas reserves, turning the U.S. from a net energy importer into one of the world’s largest energy exporters.
The growth shows no signs of slowing. In January 2026, total petroleum product exports averaged 7.0 million barrels per day, about 8% higher than the same month a year earlier. Diesel exports jumped 19% year over year, jet fuel exports surged 78%, and gasoline exports rose 7%. Liquefied petroleum gas shipments also climbed 7%. These fuels go to refineries, utilities, and transportation networks across the globe.
Other Top Goods Exports
After energy, the next largest physical exports in 2024 were cars at $62.4 billion and gas turbines at $52.2 billion. Gas turbines power everything from commercial aircraft to electricity plants, and they reflect one of the country’s longstanding manufacturing strengths: complex, high-value machinery.
Aerospace is another heavyweight. The U.S. exported $138 billion in aerospace products in 2024, including commercial aircraft, military equipment, and spacecraft. That generated a trade surplus of $79 billion in the category, meaning the country sold far more aerospace goods abroad than it bought. Boeing, along with a deep network of parts suppliers, drives much of this figure.
Electronics, which includes semiconductors and integrated circuits, totaled $72 billion in exports. However, the U.S. imported $88 billion in electronics the same year, putting it in a $16 billion deficit. American companies design many of the world’s most advanced chips, but the actual manufacturing often happens overseas, which limits the export numbers on the goods side.
Services: A Trillion-Dollar Export Category
Physical goods get most of the attention, but services are a massive and often overlooked piece of the picture. In 2024, U.S. services exports totaled $1,152.7 billion, while services imports came in at $840.9 billion, creating a surplus of about $312 billion. That surplus helps offset the country’s well-known deficit in goods trade.
Services exports include financial services (banking, insurance, asset management), charges for the use of intellectual property (licensing fees for software, patents, entertainment content), business and professional consulting, and travel spending by foreign visitors in the U.S. Technology companies earn enormous revenue from cloud computing, software subscriptions, and digital advertising sold to overseas customers, much of which counts as services trade. The growing category of “digitally deliverable services,” which covers anything that can be transmitted over the internet, has become an increasingly important slice of the total.
Where U.S. Exports Go
Canada and Mexico are by far the largest buyers of American goods, reflecting the tight economic integration of the three North American economies. In 2022, Canada purchased $356.5 billion in U.S. goods and Mexico bought $324.3 billion. Together, those two neighbors accounted for roughly a third of all U.S. goods exports. China came in third at $150.4 billion, followed by Japan at $80.2 billion and the United Kingdom at $76.2 billion.
Geography and trade agreements play a big role here. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) keeps tariffs low on most goods moving between the three countries, which encourages cross-border supply chains. Auto parts, for instance, frequently cross the U.S.-Mexico border multiple times during the manufacturing process before a finished vehicle is sold.
Agriculture Still Matters
The U.S. remains one of the world’s top agricultural exporters, shipping soybeans, corn, wheat, beef, poultry, and dairy products around the globe. While agriculture doesn’t rank as high as petroleum or aerospace in raw dollar terms, it punches above its weight relative to the size of the farming sector. American farms benefit from vast acreage, high mechanization, and strong global demand for animal feed and food staples. China, Mexico, Canada, Japan, and South Korea are the biggest customers for U.S. farm products.
The Big Picture
If you’re looking for a single answer, petroleum is the country’s main export by dollar value. But the full story is more layered. The U.S. economy exports a uniquely broad mix: energy, high-tech manufactured goods like aircraft and turbines, agricultural commodities, and a massive volume of services built on intellectual property and financial expertise. That diversity means the country isn’t dependent on any one product the way some resource-heavy economies are, even as oil and gas have claimed the top spot on the export rankings.