According to customs data, China's exports have increased 4.4% in August making this the lowest growth since February. This is missing the Reuters estimate of 5.0% by a large margin. Imports grew a shy 1.3% last month from a year ago, also missing the Reuters estimate of 3.0% by a large margin. Exports to the U.S. have dropped a vast 33% making it the largest drop in 6 months, similarly, imports from the U.S. have dropped 16% showing the lingering effects of the tariffs. Given these figures the U.S. still remains the largest trading partner with China, even with the recent lock in of 55% tariff on Chinese imports and 30% on Chinese duties on U.S. goods.
These figures show the relationship between the two countries, highlighting China's large reliance on the U.S. as an importer of Chinese goods and inversely, the U.S. taking a large portion of China's exports, reaching values of $283 billion as of August. Considering all of the implications of the U.S. China trade dispute, China is still operating at a trade surplus of approximately $102 billion for August. This figure shows promise given it was forecasted at $99.2 billion. However, this is also a steep drop-off from June highs of $114 billion. This surplus can be attributed to China's efforts to rely on close foreign markets such as the European Union bloc, the Association of Southeast Asia, and African Markets. However, this increase in exporting to other foreign markets have yet to offset the steep drop-off from exports to the U.S. This push to go abroad has been ongoing for China has had relatively slow domestic markets that have been nudged by these U.S. tariffs. The policymakers of Beijing try to steer clear of sweeping stimuli such as excessive price-cutting shown in their "anti-involution" policies and have tried to rely on targeted credit and monetary measures. I am interested to see if China begins to rely a lot less on the U.S long term or if these trade disputes will reach an end soon and we will see a surge of Chinese exports to the U.S.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/08/china-exports-growth-in-august-drops-missing-expectations-.html
You make some great points and I like that you gave the percentages. It interesting to see that there is a 50% tariff on Chinese imports, but they still have a huge reliance on each other. I wonder where this is going to go
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. is still China’s biggest trading partner! It’s wild how hard China is working to pivot to other markets, but the gap the U.S. leaves is clearly no small thing. I’m super curious too, will China manage to shake off its reliance on the U.S., or are we just in a weird phase before things bounce back?
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