UN Comtrade — Bilateral Trade Statistics

The United Nations Statistics Division's Commodity Trade Database. Bilateral trade flows between every reporting country and every partner country, broken down by commodity (HS codes), going back decades. The standard source for "who exports what to whom" at country level.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1394+ live data sources.

Why this matters for AI agents

If an agent is answering anything about international trade — bilateral relationships, commodity flows, tariffs in context, supply-chain concentration — Comtrade is the source. The data is structured (HS codes) and harmonized across countries, making cross-country comparison reliable.

Common flows:

• Bilateral analysis. "US-China trade flows in 2024." → comtrade_trade_data({reporter_code: "842", partner_code: "156", year: "2024"}) → imports + exports + balance.
• Top commodities. "What does the US import most from China?" → comtrade_top_commodities({reporter_code, partner_code, flow: "M"}).
• Top partners. "Who are the top buyers of US semiconductors?" → comtrade_top_partners({reporter_code, hs_code: "8542", flow: "X"}).
• Country code lookup. ISO 3-digit numeric codes — comtrade_country_codes returns the full mapping.

Used by the trade_bilateral_analysis and trade_country_profile compounds.

Auth

Comtrade has free and premium tiers. The free tier is heavily rate-limited (a few requests per minute). For higher volumes, register at https://comtradeplus.un.org and pass an API key via _apiKey.

Country and commodity codes

Type	Format	Example
Country	ISO 3166-1 numeric	842 (US), 156 (China), 484 (Mexico)
Commodity	HS chapter / heading / subheading	85 (electrical), 8517 (telephones), 851712 (smartphones)
Flow	M / X / re-import / re-export	M = imports, X = exports

comtrade_country_codes returns the full mapping. Most agents pass the 3-digit numeric to avoid name-disambiguation problems.

Update cadence

Comtrade releases data with a substantial lag — typically 6–12 months after the calendar year. The most recent year you can query is usually last calendar year. Pipeworx caches with 30-day TTL since this data is essentially static once published.

Common pitfalls

• Reporter vs. partner mirror data. Both sides of a trade report it (the US reports imports from China; China reports exports to the US). Numbers don't perfectly match — different valuation methods (CIF vs FOB), shipping treatment, classification differences. Reporter-side is the convention; if you need both, request both.
• HS revision changes. The HS classification updates every 5 years (HS17, HS22, etc.). Long time-series straddle revisions; codes for the same commodity can shift. Comtrade harmonizes for you in standard queries.
• Service trade NOT included. Comtrade is goods only. Service trade lives separately (BEA / WTO data). Don't conflate.
• Re-exports. Hong Kong's "exports to the US" include massive re-exports of Chinese-origin goods. The flow parameter distinguishes; use it explicitly.
• Currency. Default values are USD — but check the unit field. Some series report quantity (kg, units) only without value.
• Unreported pairs. Not every country reports to Comtrade every year. Cuba, Iran, North Korea have major gaps. Mirror data from partners can fill the holes — query the partner's reports of trade with that country.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "comtrade": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/comtrade/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway for access to all 1394+ data sources:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Using with ask_pipeworx