A new report shows that the U.S. for the first time last year exported more than $100 billion worth of products to China, but at the same time imported nearly four times that much.

The U.S.-China Business Council is a trade group that promotes the sale of American products to China. The council said Wednesday that China bought nearly $104 billion worth of U.S. goods last year. That left China ranked third as a U.S. export destination behind America's neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico.

The trade group said two western U.S. states, California and Washington, accounted for nearly a quarter of the exports to China.

The U.S. and China are the world's two largest economies, but American interests buy far more Chinese products than the reverse. The U.S. government reported that last year China sold nearly $400 billion worth of goods to U.S. interests, leaving a trade gap of more than $295 billion.