Import Dependence
How much of its energy, metal and food each big economy has to buy from abroad.
Every number on this page is one ratio: what an economy imports, less what it exports, as a share of what it uses. Seventy-five percent for China’s oil means three barrels in four that China consumes come from abroad. A net exporter shows the reverse: exports 9% for American oil means the US sells abroad, net, the equivalent of 9% of what it uses, and exports 2x its use means it sells twice what it consumes. Netting is the right measure for exposure, because a barrel exported is a barrel that could stay at home in a crisis, and it is why the US, which still imports millions of barrels of heavy crude every day, shows as a net exporter.
In the grid below, click any column to sort by it. A net exporter carries a minus sign, so −9% is the US exporting the equivalent of 9% of its oil use, and −195% is Russia exporting nearly twice what it uses. Darker orange means more dependent; darker green, a bigger net exporter. Years differ because the data does: energy is 2025, iron ore 2024, food 2023, the latest each source has published on a comparable basis.
| China | 75% | 40% | 11% | 80% | −16% | 22% | 7% |
| India | 87% | 53% | 23% | −12% | 0% | 3% | −6% |
| United States | −9% | −18% | −26% | −19% | 18% | −14% | −2% |
| European Union | 97% | 90% | 38% | 71% | 17% | 14% | −7% |
| Japan | 100% | 100% | 97% | 100% | −50% | n/a | n/a |
| South Korea | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99% | −35% | 75% | 29% |
| United Kingdom | 50% | 51% | 93% | 100% | 52% | 37% | 22% |
| Brazil | −49% | 20% | 80% | −649% | −18% | −69% | −31% |
| Russia | −195% | −27% | −134% | −5% | −28% | −32% | −2% |
| Australia | 69% | −284% | −610% | −1690% | 37% | −153% | −95% |
| Iran | −158% | −3% | n/a | −49% | −59% | 36% | 0% |
Share of domestic use met by net imports. Australia’s steel figure is 2024, the latest published. Iran’s figures are the least reliable here: its trade is sanctioned and routed through intermediaries, its food trade is estimated by the FAO rather than reported, and it burns almost no coal. Animal calories exclude dairy, whose trade statistics do not balance. Japan does not appear in the FAO food balance sheets; its own agriculture ministry puts calorie self-sufficiency at 38% (FY2023 and FY2024), meaning roughly three calories in five are imported on its method, which also counts livestock raised on imported feed as imported. Sources and methods are under each table below.
What the grid shows
China imports its raw materials and exports what it makes from them. It buys three quarters of its oil, two fifths of its gas and four fifths of its iron ore, and in 2025 it still exported a record 119 million tonnes of finished steel made from that ore. On food it is close to four fifths self-sufficient in crop calories, and most of the gap is one crop: soybeans, which account for about half of its net imported crop calories, crushed for oil and for the meal that feeds its pigs. Coal is the exception: China is the world’s largest coal importer, and those imports are still only about a tenth of what it burns.
The United States is now a net exporter of almost everything basic. Oil, gas, coal, iron ore, grain and meat all show green. The one import it relies on is steel, about a fifth of its use, which is why steel tariffs bite in America in a way that energy shocks no longer do. Twenty years ago the US imported about 60% of its oil.
Japan and South Korea import nearly all of their energy and ore and are still large net exporters of steel, which is the logistics argument in its plainest form: a seaborne raw-material market lets a country with no mines run one of the biggest steel industries in the world. Korea also imports three quarters of its crop calories.
The European Union is the most dependent of the large blocs on energy. It imports almost all its oil, nine tenths of its gas and seven tenths of its iron ore, while it feeds itself comfortably and is a net exporter of meat. That gas figure is why the loss of Russian pipeline gas in 2022 hit Europe harder than any other region.
India depends on imported energy and almost nothing else. It buys nearly nine tenths of its oil and half its gas, and about a quarter of its coal, including most of the coking coal its steel mills need, yet it is self-sufficient in iron ore and steel, and close to self-sufficient in food at the national level.
Australia is Japan in reverse. It exports about seventeen times the iron ore it uses, six times its coal and nearly three times its gas, much of it to Japan, Korea and China, yet it imports more than two thirds of its oil, mostly as refined fuel, and more than a third of its steel.
The food importers are the dense and the crowded.Korea imports three quarters of its crop calories and the UK more than a third. Iran, a net exporter of oil, ore and steel, imports more than a third of its crop calories, much of it maize and soybeans to feed its poultry, which is how it shows as self-sufficient in meat. Australia, Brazil, the US and Russia are the world’s granaries. Australia exports, net, half as many crop calories again as it uses, the most in proportion of any economy here, though 2023 was a record harvest and a drought year can cut its wheat crop by two thirds; Brazil’s net exports of crop calories equal about two thirds of what it uses itself.
Oil
Crude and refined products together, 2025.
| Economy | Use, million barrels a day | Net imports, million barrels a day | Share of use imported |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 17.4 | 13.0 | 75% |
| India | 5.6 | 4.9 | 87% |
| United States | 19.4 | -1.7 | exports 9% |
| European Union | 10.7 | 10.3 | 97% |
| Japan | 3.3 | 3.3 | 100% |
| South Korea | 2.8 | 2.8 | 100% |
| United Kingdom | 1.3 | 0.7 | 50% |
| Brazil | 2.6 | -1.3 | exports 49% |
| Russia | 3.6 | -7.1 | exports 1.9x its use |
| Australia | 1.1 | 0.75 | 69% |
| Iran | 2.0 | -3.2 | exports 1.6x its use |
Energy Institute Statistical Review 2026: consumption less production. Production includes natural gas liquids, and consumption includes bunker fuel and excludes biofuels, so the split between crude and products is not shown and the netting is approximate. Japan and South Korea produce almost no oil.
Natural gas
Pipeline gas and LNG together, 2025.
| Economy | Use, billion cubic metres | Net imports, billion cubic metres | Share of use imported |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 442 | 178 | 40% |
| India | 67 | 35 | 53% |
| United States | 913 | -160 | exports 18% |
| European Union | 329 | 295 | 90% |
| Japan | 90 | 90 | 100% |
| South Korea | 63 | 63 | 100% |
| United Kingdom | 61 | 31 | 51% |
| Brazil | 33 | 7 | 20% |
| Russia | 480 | -129 | exports 27% |
| Australia | 39 | -110 | exports 2.8x its use |
| Iran | 256 | -9 | exports 3% |
Energy Institute Statistical Review 2026: consumption less production.
Coal
All coal, thermal and coking, in tonnes of coal equivalent, 2025.
| Economy | Use, million tonnes of coal equivalent | Net imports, million tonnes of coal equivalent | Share of use imported |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 3,150 | 330 | 11% |
| India | 790 | 180 | 23% |
| United States | 300 | -77 | exports 26% |
| European Union | 157 | 60 | 38% |
| Japan | 149 | 145 | 97% |
| South Korea | 97 | 100 | 100% |
| United Kingdom | 1.7 | 1.6 | 93% |
| Brazil | 20 | 16 | 80% |
| Russia | 121 | -163 | exports 1.3x its use |
| Australia | 50 | -304 | exports 6.1x its use |
Energy Institute Statistical Review 2026. Net imports come from its coal trade tables, because its production and consumption series are not measured on a comparable basis: subtracting one from the other shows China as a net exporter in a year it imported roughly 500 million tonnes. The EU, UK and Brazil have no trade row of their own, so their figures are consumption less production. Coal is shown in tonnes of coal equivalent (29.3 gigajoules) because a tonne of lignite holds about a third of the heat of a tonne of hard coal. South Korea imported slightly more than it burned, adding to stocks.
Iron ore
Marketable ore, 2024.
| Economy | Use, million tonnes | Net imports, million tonnes | Share of use imported |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 1,514 | 1,214 | 80% |
| India | 252 | -31 | exports 12% |
| United States | 38 | -7 | exports 19% |
| European Union | 104 | 74 | 71% |
| Japan | 96 | 96 | 100% |
| South Korea | 70 | 69 | 99% |
| United Kingdom | 1.9 | 1.9 | 100% |
| Brazil | 60 | -389 | exports 6.5x its use |
| Russia | 96 | -5 | exports 5% |
| Australia | 53 | -901 | exports 17x its use |
| Iran | 45 | -22 | exports 49% |
worldsteel, World Steel in Figures 2026 and the Steel Statistical Yearbook 2025 (RMG data). China’s own mines produce about a billion tonnes of raw ore a year, but at 20 to 30% iron; converted to the 61 to 62% grade of the ore it imports, that is about 300 million tonnes, which is the comparable figure used here. China imported a record 1.26 billion tonnes in 2025. EU figures count trade with countries outside the EU only, and most EU production is Swedish. Brazil exports more than six times what it uses, nearly nine tenths of what it mines, and Australia about seventeen times, more than nine tenths of what it mines.
Steel
Finished and semi-finished steel, 2025 (Australia 2024).
| Economy | Apparent use, million tonnes | Net imports, million tonnes | Share of use imported |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 796 | -127 | exports 16% |
| India | 160 | 0.5 | 0% |
| United States | 91 | 17 | 18% |
| European Union | 135 | 23 | 17% |
| Japan | 48 | -24 | exports 50% |
| South Korea | 44 | -15 | exports 35% |
| United Kingdom | 9.7 | 5.0 | 52% |
| Brazil | 27 | -4.7 | exports 18% |
| Russia | 38 | -10 | exports 28% |
| Australia | 6.0 | 2.2 | 37% |
| Iran | 20 | -12 | exports 59% |
worldsteel, World Steel in Figures 2026: net imports of finished and semi-finished steel over apparent steel use. China’s customs count finished-steel exports at a record 119 million tonnes in 2025; worldsteel’s larger figure adds semi-finished steel such as billets. The UK’s published figures do not reconcile (production plus net imports falls well short of reported use), so its true dependence is likely nearer three quarters than half. Russia’s exports are probably understated for the same reason.
Food calories from crops
Grains, oilseeds, sugar, vegetable oils, fruit and vegetables, counted in calories, 2023.
| Economy | Supply, kcal per person per day | Net imports, kcal per person per day | Share of use imported |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 6,900 | 1,521 | 22% |
| India | 3,493 | 100 | 3% |
| United States | 14,791 | -2,049 | exports 14% |
| European Union | 9,092 | 1,230 | 14% |
| South Korea | 5,697 | 4,287 | 75% |
| United Kingdom | 5,377 | 1,988 | 37% |
| Brazil | 13,438 | -9,214 | exports 69% |
| Russia | 9,260 | -2,935 | exports 32% |
| Australia | 9,189 | -14,022 | exports 1.5x its use |
| Iran | 4,126 | 1,500 | 36% |
FAOSTAT food balance sheets, 2023, the latest year published. Supply counts every use, including animal feed, seed and processing, so it is several times what people eat (a person eats roughly 2,500 to 3,500 kcal a day) and the percentage is the number to read; feed is included on purpose, because a country importing soybeans to feed its pigs depends on those imports for its meat. Each crop is converted to calories at a standard rate, so the soybean and its oil are both counted, which inflates supply but not the share much. Oilseed calories are understated, and soybean meal, which is not a food balance item, is missing, so the EU and UK figures understate their feed imports. Treat about two points either way as noise.
Food calories from animals
Meat, fish, eggs and animal fats, counted in calories, 2023, excluding dairy (see the grid above for each economy’s share).
Few large economies import much of their meat. Korea (29%) and the UK (22%) are the exceptions; China imports about 7%, and the EU, India, the US and Russia are net exporters. The number undercounts dependence wherever animals eat imported feed: China’s pigs are fed largely on meal crushed from imported soybeans, which is why its crop figure, which includes that feed, is the better guide to its exposure. Quantities are not shown here because dairy cannot be separated from the calorie totals on a consistent basis.