During the first 10 months of 2021, the US exported 83.4 million pounds of butter, up an impressive 122 percent from the first 10 months of 2020. Also during the first 10 months of 2021, the US imported 81.9 million pounds, up 9 percent from a year earlier.
In other words, the US butter trade right now is pretty well balanced; the US is exporting roughly the same volume of butter as it’s importing.
This prompts several questions.
Among them: Has US butter trade always been this balanced?
To answer this question, we looked at butter export and import statistics dating back to 2000. What’s notable over the 2000-2021 period is how the US has gone from running a butter trade deficit to running a trade surplus, then running a trade deficit again, and now being pretty much in balance.
This pattern can be broken down into several periods. Over the 2000-2006 period, the US ran a butter trade deficit, with butter exports ranging from 3.0 million pounds in 2002 to 18.5 million pounds in 2006 and butter imports ranging from 16 million pounds in 2000 to 45.5 million pounds in 2001.
The US butter trade deficit was over 10 million pounds every year over the 2000-2005 period, with the exception of 2003, when it was 8.8 million pounds, but by 2006 it had narrowed to just 1.5 million pounds (imports totaled 20 million pounds, exports totaled 18.5 million pounds). Butter trade was well-balanced in 2006.
The butter trade situation changed dramatically starting in 2007, when the US exported a then-record 72.6 million pounds and imported 17.3 million pounds, for a trade surplus of 55.3 million pounds. From 2007 through 2014, US butter exports only dropped below 50 million pounds once (49.4 million pounds in 2009), topped 100 million pounds four times (in 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2014), and reached a record 178.4 million pounds in 2013.
Meanwhile, butter imports languished during all but the last year of that 2007-14 period, running below 20 million pounds every year from 2007 through 2013, including a low of just 8.1 million pounds in 2010.
Thus, the US ran significant butter trade surpluses during the 2007-14 period. And by “significant” trade surpluses, we mean surpluses of more than 100 million pounds during the aforementioned years in which US butter exports topped 100 million pounds.
The butter trade situation turned again in 2015, with butter exports dropping to 37.3 million pounds, their lowest level since 2006, and imports rising to 42.9 million pounds, their highest level since 2001.
Butter imports continued to rise after 2015, reaching 84.4 million pounds in 2019 before falling to 83.4 million pounds in 2020. Butter exports, meanwhile, only topped the 50-million-pound mark once over the 2015-2020 period, reaching 58.2 million pounds in 2018.
Based on the first 10 months of 2021, the US is on track to run its first butter trade surplus since 2014. And since butter trade balances seem to run in streaks, the US may be entering a new period of butter trade surpluses.
While this analysis has thus far focused on butter trade quantities, what about butter trade values? How has the US fared in this respect in recent years?
The easiest way to answer this question is to simply look at butter trade values during the first 10 months of this year when, as noted earlier, US butter exports exceeded imports by only 1.5 million pounds. On a value basis, however, the US ran a large butter trade deficit: butter exports were valued at $147.8 million, while butter imports were valued at $265 million.
Going back to 2010, there was only one year in which the value of US butter imports was less than $2.00 per pound; that was in 2012, when imports totaled 15.3 million pounds and the value of those imports was $29.3 million. In 2019, when the volume of butter imports reached 84.4 million pounds, the value of those imports hit $256.9 million, or over $3.00 per pound.
Meanwhile, US butter exports were valued at or below $2.00 per pound from 2011 through 2015, above $2.00 per pound from 2016 through 2019, and then $1.82 a pound last year and $1.77 a pound during the first 10 months of this year.
Finally, how does the US trade balance for butter compare to the trade balance for, say, cheese? That’s actually a much simpler answer than was the case for butter.
Over the 2000-2020 period, the US ran a significant cheese trade deficit from 2000 through 2009, and that deficit was more than 300 million pounds in some years; in 2002, for example, when US cheese imports reached a record 474.6 million pounds, cheese exports totaled 118.6 million pounds, for a cheese trade deficit of 356 million pounds.
Starting in 2010, however, the US started running a cheese trade surplus, which has topped 400 million pounds twice (in 2014 and again in 2020), and that surplus will probably approach 500 million pounds this year.
One other interesting point about the cheese trade balance: it turned in pretty dramatic fashion. The US ran a cheese trade deficit of about 118 million pounds in 2009, then ran a cheese trade surplus of about 76 million pounds the following year. Unlike butter, there haven’t been any years in which cheese trade was balanced.
The US butter trade situation is currently pretty well-balanced, with exports and imports roughly equal, but recent history tells us that this situation won’t last long.
