Maybe the rate at which it's rate of growth is increasing is lower? Economists love stupid shit like that, where it doesn't matter how big something is, it doesn't matter how fast it grew, no what's important is the rate at which the rate of growth is changing, that's definitely the most real metric.

Or they're grasping at some other metric, like percentage of total production exported to the US.

Or they're just lying outright, since it's not like opeds have to adhere to material reality.