The US posted a record $327.1 billion in goods and services exports in April 2026, a 2.6% jump from the prior month. The driving force behind that number isn’t tech, isn’t agriculture, and isn’t advanced manufacturing. It’s oil.
Crude oil exports alone surged by $6.4 billion in April, with fuel oil and other petroleum products adding another $2.3 billion combined.
The Iran supply shock in numbers
The conflict with Iran, which began on February 28, 2026, following US-Israeli military strikes, has gutted Iranian oil output in ways that are hard to overstate. Iranian exports, which had been running at nearly 2 million barrels per day earlier in the year, collapsed to below 300,000 bpd by May. That’s an 84% drop in volume.
US net exports of crude and petroleum products hit a historic high of 5.8 million barrels per day in April. American producers stepped in to fill the gap that Iranian barrels left behind.
