Nigeria’s exports to the United States fell by N940.98bn in the first nine months of 2025, even as imports from America more than doubled, reversing the trade balance that favoured Nigeria a year earlier, findings from the National Bureau of Statistics’ foreign trade data have shown.
An analysis of the NBS figures for Q1–Q3 2024 and Q1–Q3 2025 showed that Nigeria exported goods worth N3.65tn to the US in the first nine months of 2025, down from N4.59tn recorded in the corresponding period of 2024, representing a decline of 20.5 per cent or N940.98bn.
Over the same nine-month period, Nigeria’s imports from the US rose sharply to N6.80tn from N3.01tn, an increase of 125.5 per cent or N3.78tn, indicating that Nigeria bought far more from the US than it sold to the market in 2025.
This left Nigeria with a trade deficit of about N3.15tn with the United States in the first nine months of 2025, compared with a trade surplus of N1.57tn in the corresponding period of 2024.
The deterioration coincided with Washington’s implementation of its “reciprocal” tariff regime, under which Donald Trump signed an executive order raising Nigeria’s tariff rate from 14 per cent to 15 per cent.
The order, issued late July, took effect on August 7, 2025. Although crude oil has been exempted in several cases, the higher duty applies directly to a wide range of non-oil Nigerian exports, creating uncertainty for American importers and dampening demand ahead of and after the effective date.
With crude oil exports largely exempted from the new tariff regime, non-oil exports appear to have borne the brunt of the disruption. In the first nine months of 2024, Nigeria’s exports to the US rose steadily quarter-on-quarter, from N1.31tn in Q1 to N1.59tn in Q2 and N1.69tn in Q3.
Imports, by contrast, remained relatively moderate at N1.01tn, N965.50bn, and N1.04tn respectively. This resulted in trade surpluses of N301.94bn in Q1, N620.99bn in Q2, and N649.71bn in Q3, culminating in a cumulative surplus of N1.57tn for the nine-month period.
That trend reversed sharply in 2025. Although exports opened the year at N1.54tn in Q1, they fell to N1.36tn in Q2 and then plunged to N743.63bn in Q3. Imports followed the opposite trajectory, rising from N1.42tn in Q1 to N2.16tn in Q2 and surging further to N3.22tn in Q3.
Quarter-on-quarter analysis showed that exports declined by 11.9 per cent between Q1 and Q2 2025, before collapsing by 45.3 per cent between Q2 and Q3. Imports, meanwhile, jumped by 51.8 per cent between Q1 and Q2 and rose by another 49.1 per cent between Q2 and Q3, rapidly widening Nigeria’s trade deficit with the US.
On a year-on-year basis, exports to the US grew by 17.7 per cent in Q1 2025 compared with Q1 2024, but the trend reversed thereafter. Exports fell by 14.3 per cent in Q2 2025 compared with Q2 2024 and plunged by 56.0 per cent in Q3 2025 relative to Q3 2024.
Imports increased sharply across all quarters, rising by 40.9 per cent in Q1, 123.5 per cent in Q2, and 209.4 per cent in Q3. The sharp contraction in export earnings explains why the United States dropped out of Nigeria’s top five export destinations by Q2 and Q3 of 2025, despite remaining one of Nigeria’s largest sources of imports.
Product-level data from the NBS further shows the imbalance. In Q1 2025, Nigeria’s exports to the US were dominated by crude petroleum oils valued at N779.38bn, followed by urea at N240.17bn and kerosene-type jet fuel at N214.30bn. Other export items included petroleum gases in gaseous state valued at N95.97bn and standard quality cocoa beans at N58.84bn.
Imports from the US in Q1 2025 were led by crude petroleum oils worth N726.84bn, alongside used diesel vehicles above 2,500cc valued at N93.51bn, lubricating oil additives at N60.12bn, soya beans at N45.04bn, and butanes at N32.85bn.
By Q2 2025, Nigeria’s export basket to the US had narrowed significantly, led by cocoa beans worth N37.39bn and urea valued at N106.44bn, alongside technically specified natural rubber at N10.43bn and leather products valued at N127.22m.
Imports, however, expanded sharply, with crude petroleum oils alone valued at N1.34tn, followed by used vehicles, wheat, motor spirit, and denatured alcohol. In Q3 2025, exports dwindled further to relatively minor items such as soya bean flour valued at N23.60bn, cocoa powder preparations worth N36.83m, and technically specified natural rubber valued at N5.03bn.
Imports from the US continued to surge, with crude petroleum oils rising to N2.31tn, alongside strong inflows of used vehicles, wheat, and industrial plastics. With the US no longer among Nigeria’s top five export destinations by mid-2025 and imports accelerating rapidly, the figures highlight growing structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s trade position and the vulnerability of its export earnings to external policy shifts.
