The 2024 U.S. presidential election led to significant implications for global trade. President Donald Trump, who took office in January 2025 and had campaigned on imposing tariffs to to address trade imbalances soon declared his intention to tax goods from many nations that export products to the United States. These included close trading partners, such as Canada, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, among others. Some nations responded by threatening reciprocal tariffs, sparking a period of trade negotiations and uncertainty that reshaped the course of global trade. In the same period, ongoing conflicts between Russia and the Ukraine and between Hamas, Iran, Israel, and other parties in the Middle East further contributed to economic churn related to oil supplies, sanctions, access to shipping lanes, and other factors. Geopolitical tensions are likely to continue influencing import and export activity between the United States and its trading partners in the coming years.
The trade war between China and the United States persisted into the mid-2020s. In March 2023, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, noted that U.S. exports to China continued to languish, stating: "China is now shifting some purchases of foreign goods away from the United States. Both have the same fear: that the other side will suddenly weaponize trade flows—cut off imports or exports—in the name of security. Trying to get ahead of that, each is now attempting to diversify."
In 2024, both China and the United States made moves to limit trade with one another. In March of that year, China prohibited the use of AMD and Intel chips in its government computers, while also opting to favor domestically produced software instead of using the Microsoft operating system. Two months later, the United States revoked licenses enabling Qualcomm and Intel to provide chips to the Chinese telecommunications maker, Huawei Technologies.
On May 14, 2024, The Economist reported that the Biden administration had imposed higher tariffs on Chinese-made goods in several categories. Describing the increases as more dramatic and targeted than those made by the Trump administration, the publication explained that these included syringes and needles, lithium-ion batteries, semiconductors and solar cells, and electric vehicles. Tariffs on the latter were the most significant of all, increasing from 25 percent to 100 percent. In September 2024, the United States and Japan were on the verge of signing a deal that would limit technology exports to China's chip industry.
Wars, natural disasters, disease, weather, and many other factors can influence trade. During the mid-2020s, attacks by Houthi rebels on tankers and cargo ships in the Red Sea caused hundreds of shipping vessels to travel around southern Africa instead of going through the Suez Canal. According to J.P. Morgan, this significantly impacted both freight costs and shipping times by adding 4,000 miles to each trip. “With 30% of global container trade passing through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea shipping crisis is upending supply chains,” the firm explained. “This is compounded by the ongoing shipping disruptions caused by blockages in the Panama Canal, which is experiencing one of the region’s worst droughts since the 1950s.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of buyers and purchasing agents in all industries will increase by 7 percent from 2023 to 2033. This faster-than-average increase is expected even though more organizations are beginning to use technology like artificial intelligence to automate certain procurement tasks. The outlook also is positive for accountants and auditors, with faster-than-average growth of 6 percent projected across all industries, and market research analysts, with 8 percent growth.
It is not easy to break into the international field in the large corporations, although some students are recruited occasionally for overseas service. Large companies that have been abroad for many years have well-established programs and hiring practices. They may have programs that train within the company for work abroad, or they may be able to rely on the local nationals to run most of the organization. Usually, a number of years must be spent in the domestic office learning the business and the company and often specializing in one aspect of it. Maturity and experience in decision making ordinarily must be gained in the United States before a person is sent overseas.
Many import-export jobs are relatively short in duration. The trend in recent years has been to send overseas only those U.S. employees who have skills and abilities not available locally. Americans go overseas to train local nationals in technical know-how and management techniques or as engineers or contractors on a project. After two or three years, perhaps longer, they are replaced by the local nationals they have trained. Therefore, many overseas jobs are temporary as companies send people skilled in setting up a manufacturing process or researching a new market for just a few years.
Since new technology has made the world smaller, even small and medium-sized companies are now able to venture into import or export. They can use the Internet and interactive video to display products, solicit customers, shop for supplies, and make arrangements for credit, insurance, and transportation. Often, jobs in import-export are undefined because the work is new to most companies. Self-motivation, creativity, and openness to world cultures are essential to the employee who will be breaking new territory for a company. Given the volatility of the field, the best that people interested in an import-export career can do is to ensure they have the basic skills needed, such as accounting, foreign language, and market research.