According to trade economist Mike Waugh's calculations based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, from January to September 2026, re-exports (foreign-made, imported, and then re-exported) accounted for 52% of U.S. AI-related product exports, far exceeding the 23% proportion of all merchandise exports. Calculated using a three-month moving average, U.S.-made exports reached approximately $16.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%; re-exports reached approximately $16.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 38.5%, surpassing domestic exports in scale. It is worth noting that after the U.S. implemented tariff policies in 2025, the scale of re-exports accelerated significantly. The U.S. is becoming a major hub in the global AI hardware supply chain, with a large number of foreign-made AI-related products flowing to other markets after being imported, stored, and transshipped through the U.S., while the growth rate of domestically manufactured exports is relatively low. This also reflects that the growth in U.S. AI trade exports is increasingly contributed by the flow of international supply chains.
