Guatemala Export Trade Data: $14.26B in 2023, Down 9.78%

A Surprising World Leader in Cardamom and Palm Oil

Guatemala exported $14.26 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 9.78% from $15.81 billion the year before. Fruit and nuts led every category, worth $1.57 billion, or 10.98% of the total, and apparel and clothing accessories, knitted or crocheted, ranked second at 9.70% ($1.38 billion), tied to Guatemala's large garment manufacturing sector built around duty-free access to the US market. Coffee, tea, mate, and spices took third at 9.34% ($1.33 billion). Guatemala controls more than 50% of international cardamom demand, exporting $365 million worth of the spice in 2023. Production that year reached roughly 95,210 metric tons, or 43.43% of world output, an outsized position for a crop that isn't even native to the country. Cardamom is not indigenous to Central America at all; it arrived in Guatemala's highlands only in the early twentieth century, and the country has since eclipsed India, cardamom's traditional home, as the world's dominant supplier.

Animal, vegetable, or microbial fats and oils ranked fourth at 7.37% ($1.05 billion), driven substantially by palm oil. Guatemala has emerged as one of the world's largest palm oil exporters over the past decade. It ranks among the top handful of producing countries behind only Indonesia and Malaysia. The large majority of that oil gets sold onward to multinational food and consumer-goods companies rather than consumed domestically. Sugars and sugar confectionery added 5.47% ($779.42 million), another major Guatemalan agricultural export tied to the country's sizable sugarcane plantations along its Pacific coastal plain.

Plastics contributed 3.85% ($548.61 million), and paper and paperboard added 3.19% ($454.28 million), both tied to Guatemala's broader manufacturing base for the Central American regional market. Vegetables, roots, and tubers took 2.93% ($418.38 million), a category that draws directly on Guatemala's varied highland and lowland growing conditions. Beverages, spirits, and vinegar contributed 2.87% ($408.84 million), and pharmaceutical products closed out the top ten at 2.79% ($398.18 million), reflecting a domestic drug manufacturing industry that serves both Guatemala and neighboring Central American markets.

The USA and Central American Neighbors Dominate the Buyer List

United States bought 32.33% of Guatemala's exports, worth $4.61 billion, by far the largest single destination and consistent with the country's apparel exports and preferential US trade access described above. El Salvador followed at 13.14% ($1.87 billion), and Honduras took 11.42% ($1.63 billion), rounding out a top three that made up 56.90% of total export value. Those two Central American neighbors, along with several others further down this list, reflect Guatemala's role as the largest economy within the Central American Common Market. That regional trade bloc keeps a meaningful share of Guatemalan goods circulating close to home rather than crossing an ocean.

Nicaragua added 6.91% ($985.64 million), and Mexico contributed 4.73% ($674.15 million), a smaller share than might be expected given the two countries share a long land border. Costa Rica took 4.50% ($641.52 million), and the Netherlands added 4.38% ($624.01 million), likely reflecting the Netherlands' role as a major European gateway port for goods like coffee and cardamom headed onward to other EU markets. Panama contributed 2.20% ($313.83 million), a country whose canal makes it a natural transshipment point for goods moving between the Americas and beyond. Spain took 2.04% ($291.22 million), and the Dominican Republic closed out the top ten at 1.70% ($242.23 million).

A Pullback From a Record Set the Year Before

Guatemala's export total climbed in every year of this five-year window except the most recent one. It stood at $11.29 billion in 2019, then edged up to $11.66 billion in 2020. That was a rare gain during a year when the pandemic pushed most economies' trade totals down, likely reflecting steady demand for the agricultural staples that make up so much of this export list. It climbed further to $13.74 billion in 2021, then reached a record $15.81 billion in 2022, a year when commodity prices across food, fuel, and agricultural inputs surged globally.

The 2023 total of $14.26 billion, down 9.78% from that record, still sits above every year before 2022 in this dataset. Cardamom, palm oil, coffee, and sugar are all sensitive to global commodity price swings. Apparel exports are tied closely to US consumer demand under preferential trade access. Given that mix, Guatemala's export figures are likely to keep reflecting agricultural commodity cycles and North American demand patterns more than any single domestic factor on its own.