GCC trade with US slumps despite Saudi export growth

GCC trade with US slumps despite Saudi export growth | AGBI
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May 13, 2026
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GCC trade with US slumps despite Saudi export growth
By Valentina Pasquali
May 9, 2026, 6:46 AM
Licht Wolke/Alamy via Reuters
A container ship in the port of Brooklyn, New York. Many GCC exports to the US would have been en route before the war began
American exports to GCC down
Imports from Saudi and Oman rose
US maintains trade surplus
US exports to the six GCC countries – Saudi Arabia , the UAE , Qatar , Bahrain , Oman and Kuwait – dropped sharply in March after logistics bottlenecks constrained international commerce in the first full month of the US-Israeli war with Iran .
However, analysts have said Saudi Arabia recorded increasing sales to the US market due to the timing of the shipment of pre-war goods, higher energy prices and use of its Red Sea coast to bypass the Strait of Hormuz .
Bilateral trade with Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar fell sharply month on month and year on year in March, according to the latest data from the US Census.
US exchanges to and from the UAE slid more gradually, the figures published this week showed.
“I don’t think it is a surprise that US exports to the region declined in March given the transportation issues with getting stuff into the Gulf,” said Tim Callen, a former International Monetary Fund official and now visiting fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
US exports to Oman and Saudi Arabia fell, but imports from these two countries rose.
Saudi Arabia sold $1.4 billion of goods to the US market in March, almost double the same month last year and the highest level in two years.
Analysts said it was too early to know exactly what may be driving this trend, but offered a few hypotheses.
The lag between crude production, shipment and delivery could be factors, according to Callen.
“We know that Saudi Arabia shipped a lot of oil in February ahead of the war, so by the time this made it to US markets it would have been March,” he noted, citing Opec data showing that the kingdom’s output rose to nearly 11 million barrels per day in February from just over 10 million bpd in January.
Justin Alexander, the US-based director of Khalij Economics, agreed “timing differences” are critical.
Imports “will be recorded based on when shipments arrive in the US rather than when they depart the Gulf”, and current figures “largely reflect shipments initiated pre-war”, Alexander said.
“Overall, the data is a reminder that direct US-GCC [trade] is fairly small for both sides and the US continues to have a solid trade surplus with most of the GCC states,” he added.
Further reading:
Conflict pushes Omani-Saudi border trade to record levels
US-Gulf trade rose pre-war despite Trump tariffs
Trump’s Gulf trade gamble: the numbers don’t add up
The rapidly rising cost of energy products may also explain the bump, said Rachel Ziemba, a macrostrategy adviser in New York.
She pointed to Saudi Arabia’s receipt of nearly $1.2 billion for mineral fuels, the highest since April 2024, suggesting pricing, not just volume, could be making a difference.
Saudi Arabia may additionally be benefiting from its access to the Red Sea, which has allowed it to divert at least some exports away from Hormuz.
Oman enjoys the same ability because it overlooks the Arabian Sea, but does not seem to have taken as much advantage of this, except when it comes to fertilisers, Ziemba added.
Qatari and Saudi sales of fertiliser to the US in March were up year on year but fell from the previous month, according to a database maintained by the US Census.
Oman’s fertiliser exports quadrupled from March 2025 levels.
The sultanate’s sales to the US otherwise increased in March on a monthly and annual basis, but more gradually than those of Saudi Arabia.
US imports of aluminium from Bahrain declined slightly, while those from the UAE rose in March, likely another reflection of shipments that were at sea when the war broke out on February 28 but had not yet reached their American destinations.
Ziemba said this is unsustainable given the metal’s production shut-ins in the region .
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