Animal production accounts for 16% of international agri-food trade. The growing imbalance between supply and demand for animal products in Asian countries, where consumption is growing, particularly in China, stimulates trade for the benefit of the major exporting countries: the European Union (EU), the United States, New Zealand, Brazil and Australia. While this development offers trade opportunities for countries with a structural surplus, purchases fluctuate from year to year and price competition is very strong, despite the qualitative requirements of some countries. The EU, which has a positive trade balance in dairy products and pork, but a negative one (in monetary terms) in beef and poultry meat, is the world's largest exporter of animal products (with 22% of the extra-EU trade in 2016). This article analyses the evolution of trade in animal products using customs statistics data (BACI and COMEXT) from 2000 to 2016. It presents the evolution of international trade for different types of goods (dairy products, beef, pork, poultry meat) and highlights the trade trajectories (patterns) of the main net importing countries (China, Japan and Russia) and net exporting countries (India, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, the United States and the EU).