This past week I was helping a couple of students with finding U.S. trade statistics and came across a couple of very useful government sites that provide free data.

• USITC DataWeb: United States International Trade Commission's Interactive Tariff and Trade Database
  information http://dataweb.usitc.gov/
  login screen http://dataweb.usitc.gov/scripts/user_set.asp
  This database is not terribly easy to use, but provides excellent import stats, export stats, and tariff information from 1989 to the present. Data is available monthly, quarterly, and annually. In order to use, you need to set up a free account. Doing so allows you to save your searches for future use and allows the USITC to gather stats on usage.


• Trade Stats Express
  http://tse.export.gov
  This database is maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Trade Administration. National trade data and state export data is available. The data within the national trade data area includes mapped global pattern data and product profiles of U.S. merchanise within a selected market. The state export data includes both state by state exports to a selected market and export product profiles to a selected market.