2024 U.S. Trade Data

The U.S. Commerce Department recently released census trade figures for the month of December, which rounds out data for the 2024 calendar year. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tracks exports of primary agricultural commodities like corn, soybeans and wheat in its weekly export inspection report, the Census Bureau also tracks export figures but does so for all goods coming and going from the U.S., and not just specific ag commodities.

Data from the two groups often differ, mainly due to differences in how the data is collected. The Census Bureau generally makes its analysis from the point of shipment, while the USDA will often further analyze and aggregate data, in some cases leading to different results.

Getting into the numbers, 2024 corn exports were seen at 62.351 million metric tons, the third...