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Figure 2-7. Top 25 U.S. Foreign Trade Freight Gateways by Value: 2005 ($ billions)

The top 25 foreign trade gateways measured by value of shipments are comprised of 9 airports, 11 water ports, and 5 border crossings. At these 25 gateways, imports comprise 65 percent of the total. Ports with very large shares of imports relative to exports are mostly water ports (such as the ports of Los Angeles, CA, Long Beach, CA, and Tacoma, WA). Anchorage International Airport also has a very high proportion of imports relative to exports.

See paragraph above and table below for explanation of Figure 2-7

Data represented in the figure
Table in Excel format

Gateway Type Rank Exports Imports Total
Port of Los AngelesWater1 20.6 168.9 189.6
JFK International AirportAir2 59.3 75.6 134.9
Port of DetroitLand3 68.8 61.7 130.5
Port of New YorkWater4 26.5 102.8 129.3
Port of LaredoLand 5 40.9 52.8 93.7
Port of Houston Water 6 34.5 51.2 85.7
Chicago Airports Air 7 29.1 44.3 73.4
Los Angeles International AirportAir 8 36.5 36.4 72.9
Port of Long Beach Water 9 19.4 53.0 72.4
Port of Buffalo-Niagara FallsLand 10 32.5 38.0 70.5
Port of HuronLand 1123.6 44.6 68.2
San Francisco International AirportAir12 25.2 32.0 57.2
Port of CharlestonWater13 16.0 37.1 53.1
Port of El PasoLand14 18.9 24.1 43.0
Port of Norfolk HarborWater15 14.5 25.0 39.5
Port of Seattle Water 16 8.2 30.8 39.0
Port of BaltimoreWater 17 8.6 27.3 35.9
Dallas-Fort Worth AirportsAir 18 15.4 19.7 35.1
Anchorage Airports Air 19 8.7 26.0 34.7
Port of Savannah Water 20 11.4 22.3 33.7
Port of Oakland Water 21 9.0 24.5 33.5
Port of Tacoma Water 22 4.7 26.9 31.6
Atlanta Airports Air 23 11.6 18.3 29.9
New Orleans Airports Air 24 11.8 17.9 29.7
Miami International AirportAir 25 17.8 9.7 27.4

Note: Data for all air gateways include a low level (generally less than 2%-3% of the total value) of small user-fee airports located in the same region. Air gateways not identified by airport name (e.g., Chicago, IL, and others) include major airport(s) in that geographic area in addition to small regional airports. In addition, due to Bureau of Census confidentiality regulations, data for courier operations are included in the airport totals for JFK International Airport, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago, Miami, and Anchorage.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics 2006 (Washington, DC: 2006), available at www.bts.gov as of October 16, 2006.

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