September Rain
China posted lackluster trade figures in September, highlighting how it might become slowly less reliant on global commerce as other major economies retrench.
Chinese exports increased 2.4% year-on-year, below economists’ expectations of around 6%, to $303.7 billion, while imports increased only 0.3% to $222 billon.
The 2024 Boom
For most of 2024, Chinese…
The politics of trade in the U.S. have gotten complicated during this century, mainly because deindustrialization in the Rust Belt has cost so many factories and jobs. The free trade consensus of the 1990s that led to NAFTA and China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 is dead.
But it shouldn’t be lost on…
As the business world girds for a fresh wave of trade protectionism and the possibility of a second Trump administration, China bumped up exports of two essential metals. In June, its shipments of steel products increased 20.8% year-on-year by quantity to 8.7 million tons and 3.8% by value to $6.8 billion. Its shipments of unwrought…
In a tricky global economy, Vietnamese exports shrank in 2023, but the rising economic power managed to be one of the only countries to increase merchandise exports to China, thanks to a surprising surge in exports of fruits and vegetables, as well as rice, demonstrating the importance of export diversification.
The Difficulties of 2023
The country of…
It’s not an easy time for global trade--the roughly $25 trillion piece of the $105 trillion world economy. Protectionism is roaring in the U.S. and Europe, causing geopolitical tension with China. Inflation across most of the world has shrunk consumers’ wallets and imports, while deflation in China is also scaring businesses. Asian supply chains are…