Eleven Years, Eleven Trade Deficits

The Philippines buys more from the world than it sells to it. That has been true every year for eleven straight years.

Not most years. Every year. No exceptions.

Where the Data Came From

I pulled 2015 to 2023 from the World Bank's WITS trade database. Then I added monthly figures from the PSA through the first quarter of 2026.

Together that covers what we sold, what we bought, and which countries were on the other side.

Eleven Years, Eleven Deficits

When a country buys more than it sells, the gap is called a trade deficit. Ours has never closed.

In 2015 the gap was about 12 billion dollars. By 2022 it hit 66.95 billion, the worst on record, as buying surged after the pandemic. In 2024 it narrowed to 54.3 billion.

Narrower, yes. But still far wider than where it started.

There is a reason the gap will not close easily. Our factories run on imported parts. To build electronics for export, we first buy chips, components, machines, and fuel. Selling more abroad means buying more first.

One Basket, Most of the Eggs

Electronics are 53.4% of everything we sell abroad. Add other manufactured goods and it reaches 79.7%.

That is a big bet on one industry. When the world needs fewer chips, our export number falls, and nothing else is large enough to cushion it. That is exactly what happened in 2023, when exports dropped about 6 billion dollars as global chip demand cooled.

Who Is on the Other Side

Our buying and our selling point at different countries. That asymmetry is the heart of the story.

China supplies 23.1% of everything we import, about 31 billion dollars in 2023. That is more than twice any other country.

But the United States is our top customer, buying 11.43 billion dollars of our goods.

Put those together and the picture sharpens. With China we run a gap of 20.28 billion dollars. That single relationship is about a third of our entire deficit.

The US is the only large partner where we come out ahead, by 2.32 billion. Hong Kong adds another 8.77 billion. Those two help pay for the rest.

A Possible Turn

In the first three months of 2026, exports grew 12.7% while imports grew 8.9%.

That is the right shape. Selling is growing faster than buying. If it holds, the gap could narrow for the first time since 2020.

Note the qualifier. In 2020 the gap narrowed because the world stopped, not because we got stronger. A narrowing gap is only good news when both sides are growing and one grows faster.

What I'd Do Differently

I would like to separate goods from services. This data counts physical things in ships. It misses call centers and software work sold abroad, and those are huge here. Add services and the picture may look very different.

I would also like to see who is doing the trading. A handful of large electronics plants may drive most of these numbers. Company-level data would show whether this is a national trend or a few very big factories.