Mapping Freight: The Highly Concentrated Nature of Goods Trade in the United States

The United States is the world’s largest economy, as well as its preeminent trading power. Each year the country exports and imports over $3 trillion worth of international goods, while the domestic market encompasses an astonishing $17 trillion in goods trade between regions—amounting to a combined $20 trillion. These trading relationships serve as a sparkplug to the national economy, providing access to distant markets, helping U.S. firms take part in global value chains, and spurring innovative value creation and industrial specialties. Standing at the center of this invaluable trade network is the country’s freight infrastructure, an expansive set of transportation assets that help match supply and demand between separate regions. Considering the importance of goods trade to the country, strikingly little is known about which regions trade with one another. This information gap limits the country’s ability to coordinate freight policies and investments. Overall, the lack of a well-defined, networked approach to freight infrastructure continues to hold back needed projects and hinder long-term economic growth. To address this deficiency, this report analyzes domestic and international goods trade data from 2010, revealing that: (1) The country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas drive national goods trade, with more than 80 percent of all goods either starting or ending in these areas. (2) Just 10 percent of the country’s trade corridors move 79 percent of all goods, the most valuable of which are concentrated in the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. (3) Every region of the country relies on at least one major network hub to move large volumes of goods along different corridors domestically and internationally. (4) Metropolitan areas tend to trade more goods with each other when they are located close together, employ a sizable number of logistics workers, and house large populations. (5) With over 77 percent of the nation’s freight moving between different states, the United States must establish a more coordinated freight strategy across all levels of the public and private sectors.