International trade helps fuel Oregon’s $265 billion economy.
Businesses and manufacturers in the state rely on imported goods and parts to run companies ranging from furniture shops to computer chip factories. Meanwhile, Oregon farmers, fishers and manufacturers rely on international buyers’ interest in their products. And shipping and storage companies generate business by helping move these imports and exports around.
All told, last year Oregon imported more than $28 billion worth of goods, and sent more than $34 billion worth of stuff to global markets.
Nearly every industry is touched in some way by international trade. The semiconductor industry is by far the state’s largest importer and exporter. It buys parts and machinery to design and build computer chips, which are then sent all over the world.
Other manufacturers in machinery or transportation also import parts, and builders bring in things like wood and drywall. Retailers buy clothes, shoes and accessories from overseas producers.
Oregon also sells a lot of its quintessential products to other countries. Agriculture and food products were among the state’s top exports last year, with international buyers having a particular interest in Oregon fish, wine, hazelnuts and wheat. More than 80% of the soft, white wheat grown in Eastern Oregon is sold overseas for products ranging from noodles and dumplings to crackers.
Since President Trump levied a 10% tariff on goods entering the U.S. from all countries in early April, Oregon business owners have told state leaders the cost to do business is going up. Company owners say they fear the uncertainty around tariffs has already done lasting damage to the state’s trade relationships.
In many cases, businesses say they’d like to find domestic sources, but they just don’t exist. There are plenty of coffee roasteries in Oregon, for example, but coffee beans are grown mostly in Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia. Even food producers that can source most things domestically say they still rely on foreign markets for certain things that don’t grow in the U.S.
“We can’t buy everything in the United States,” Trey Winthrop, CEO of Milwaukie-based Bob’s Red Mill, told the Gov. Tina Kotek in April. “We actually import from 31 different countries. These are commodities that U.S. farmers just don’t grow. We’re talking things like coconut, tapioca starch — quinoa only grows above 13,000 feet; we do not have the ability to grow quinoa in the United States.”
Winthrop said Bob’s Red Mill products can also be found on shelves in 65 countries. But he told Kotek that he’s seeing campaigns in countries like Canada encouraging consumers to stop buying American goods in response to Trump’s tariffs.
