Aerospace and Defense Are Largest U.S. Exports

Deloitte’s “U.S. aerospace & defense export competitiveness study” found that the U.S. aerospace and defense sector’s gross exports increased by $5 billion in 2015, a 58.9 percent increase in the last five years.

Looking forward, the U.S. aerospace and defense sector’s gross exports are expected to increase by 3.2 percent in 2016. This is largely due to an increased pipeline of defense platform products announced and expected for foreign military sales by U.S. defense contractors.

“The US aerospace and defense sector was the largest contributor to America’s net exports during the 2010 to 2015 period, making it one of the few domestic industrial sectors with a positive trade balance,” said Tom Captain, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP, and aerospace and defense sector leader. “The sector is also a top employer, taxpayer, and contributor to the nation’s gross domestic product, making it key to US manufacturing competitiveness.”

During the 2010 to 2015 period analyzed in the survey, the U.S. aerospace and defense sector was responsible for the following:

Sector accounted for 9.5 percent of total U.S. exports in 2015, with the sector’s contribution increasing from 7.1 percent of total exports in 2010.
US accounted for 33 percent of global defense exports in 2015.
Total aerospace and defense gross exports in 2015 were $143.3 billion, a significant increase of 58.9 percent over the last five years.
China was the largest aerospace and defense export market for the US in 2015, followed by the UK and France.

The top five exporting states–Washington, California, Connecticut, Texas, and Georgia–accounted for about 61 percent of the total aerospace and defense sector exports in 2015. Washington state also showed a strong 109.4 percent increase in exports in 2015 compared to 2010 as the state that continues to have the largest presence in the commercial aircraft manufacturing subsector.

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