John Miller, Author at Trade Data Monitor

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John Miller

138 articles published

Vietnam’s Superpower: Versatility

UncategorizedMarch 27, 2026169Views 0Likes 0Comments

Vietnam’s Moment in (Trade) Time The wars in Iran and Ukraine, and trade turmoil around the world, especially involving the U.S. and China, have obscured what continues to be one of the essential trade stories of the century: Vietnam’s export growth. The Asian country of 102 million has staged an epic comeback since the 1970s…

How AI Is Driving Global Trade

UncategorizedMarch 16, 2026250Views 0Likes 0Comments

Lower Growth in China In early March, Chinese leadership set their lowest gross domestic product growth target since 1991, forecasting a 4.5% to 5% expansion for its economy in 2026. This week, China reported a 21.8% year-on-year increase in exports for January and February to $656.6 billion. To avoid distorted numbers because of Chinese New…

Global Trade is Moving On — Without the U.S.

UncategorizedJanuary 20, 2026519Views 0Likes 0Comments

One way of looking at China’s trade economy in December and for the full 2025 year is its export surge, amplified by a weak currency, deflation at home, and inflation in most of the rest of the world. China pumped up total monthly exports 6.6% to $357.8 billion in December from $335.6 billion over the…

TDM’s Top 10 Trade Trends to Watch in 2026

UncategorizedJanuary 13, 2026598Views 0Likes 0Comments

Happy New Year. While we wait on the Supreme Court to rule whether the Trump administration is entitled to apply tariffs on national security grounds, global trade grinds on. We at Trade Data Monitor are paying attention to what’s happening via the prism of official trade statistics. It’s a radically different world than when I started covering…

China Reconfigures Export Markets as Shipments to U.S. Plummet

UncategorizedJune 19, 20251KViews 1Like 0Comments

U.S. Market Collapsing For China As Americans and Chinese officials scrambled to forge new politically acceptable trade terms, China reported a pandemic-level decline in exports to the U.S. Chinese shipments to the U.S. fell 34.4% year-on-year in May to $28.8 billion, the steepest drop since Covid-19 upended global trade in February 2020. Chinese imports from…

How to Think About Tariffs

UncategorizedMay 19, 20252KViews 1Like 0Comments

In the new age of trade geopolitics, the only certainty is uncertainty. What we can do at Trade Data Monitor is take an educated look at trade statistics that measure what’s leaving and entering ports, crossing oceans, and flying through the air. To be sure, the scenario is less than rosy. The World Trade Organization…

China Hikes Oil & Gas Imports

UncategorizedApril 23, 20251KViews 1Like 0Comments

China’s Economy When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the move was seen as an essential turboboost to a huge but developing country. Without access to global markets, there was no way for China to become the greatest exporter the world has ever seen. Now, as the backlash to that growth turns into…

China Finally Affected by Protectionist Tariffs

UncategorizedOctober 23, 20242KViews 1Like 0Comments

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…

How Tariffs Are Reshuffling EV Trade

UncategorizedJuly 11, 20242KViews 1Like 0Comments

Age of the EV We’re entering the age of the electric vehicle, and global trade is keeping pace. Around 20% of all cars bought in the world in 2023, a total of almost 14 million, were electric, and there are now 40 million on the road, according to the International Energy Agency. Total trade in…

TDM Insight: Vietnamese Exports Rebound in 2024

UncategorizedMay 15, 20243KViews 0Likes 0Comments

After a tepid recovery in 2023, Vietnam’s trade machine appears to be firing on all cylinders so far in 2024. The country boosted exports 16.8% year-on-year to $92.9 billion in the first quarter, underpinning gross domestic product growth of 5.7%. This is no coincidence. Vietnam’s export sector is key to its economic growth. It is…

China Reboots Trade Thanks to Africa, India, Latin America

UncategorizedMarch 11, 20243KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Don’t let anybody tell you that globalization is dying—at least, not yet. Global trade economists obsess over consumer demand and rising protectionism in the U.S. and Europe, but this week’s release of Chinese trade statistics shows that other markets might soon be catching up in relevance. The Promise of Other Markets China’s exports to Latin…

Vietnam’s Secret Weapon: Agriculture

UncategorizedMarch 1, 20243KViews 0Likes 0Comments

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…

Ukraine: Two Years of Wheat Exports In Review

UncategorizedFebruary 29, 20243KViews 0Likes 0Comments

As we enter the third year after the invasion of Ukraine, the landscape of Ukrainian trade, and, specifically, exports of wheat, have drastically evolved. As the world's 4th-largest exporter of wheat and meslin in 2023, Ukraine has remained a relatively stable producer of wheat over the past decade and has remained especially resilient over the…

What’s Behind the High-Tech Trade Slump?

UncategorizedFebruary 16, 20242KViews 0Likes 0Comments

It’s not been an easy time for international trade, as a recent report co-authored by Trade Data Monitor and the World Intellectual Property Organization found. High-tech exports are set to decline by 4 percent in 2023, according to the TDM/WIPO analysis. Global and high-tech trade have soared and sunk like rollercoasters since 2019. After…

The Future of EU-China Trade

UncategorizedDecember 21, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

As European Union leaders gathered in Beijing Thursday, one of their demands for China was a more equal trading relationship. “China is the EU’s most important trading partner,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “But there are clear imbalances and differences that we must address.” Europe’s weak consumer economy is doing its part…

Trade Data Monitor’s Top 10 Trade Trends Going Into 2024

UncategorizedDecember 20, 20234KViews 2Likes 0Comments

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…

Turkey Hikes Exports of Military-Goods Exported to Russia

UncategorizedDecember 8, 20233KViews 0Likes 0Comments

A recent Financial Times article, based on data supplied by Trade Data Monitor, detailed the increase in Turkish exports of military-linked goods to Russia in the first nine months of 2023. This has magnified U.S. concerns over the trade of 45 "high-profile" items subject to export controls and heightened tensions with NATO partners. The FT…

TDM Data Used to Scrutinize Impact of Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

UncategorizedNovember 15, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Trade scholars in a recent paper used Trade Data Monitor data on steel and aluminum trade to gauge the impact of 2018-2019 protectionist measures on U.S. and European Union imports. The paper by Simon Evenett and Fernando Martin, published by the Center for European Policy Research, found that because the U.S. and European Union…

Vietnam’s Niche Export Sectors Highlight Complexity of Global Trade

UncategorizedJuly 27, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

As global trade putters in 2023, because of weak consumer demand, lingering Covid fallout and protectionist tensions, the slackening has highlighted niche sectors in the global economy where trade is still robust. The upshot: We’re no longer living in a world where every consumer is buying more stuff and everything is made in China, or…

China Goes To Europe

UncategorizedMay 12, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

There’s so much focus on the U.S.-China trade relationship and its frequent fireworks that it’s often forgotten that the European Union, still the world’s preeminent free-trade alliance, with 447 million consumers, is the better customer. In April, exports to the European Union increased 4.1% year-on-year to $44.7 billion, while exports to the U.S. dropped 6.2%…

Vietnamese Exports Slump But Its Consumers Are Buying Cars

UncategorizedMay 4, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

The steep drop in Vietnam’s exports and imports during the first quarter of 2023 points to vulnerabilities in the country of around 100 million’s economy, as well as slumping factory orders and business confidence around the world. Vietnam’s quarterly exports fell 11.8% year-on-year to $79.3 billion in the first three months of 2023. Trade makes…

Vietnam’s Weak December Exports Hint at Challenge For Global Economy

UncategorizedJanuary 23, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Vietnam, which has become a global trade powerhouse and one of the global economy’s key world trade indicators, posted weak exports in December, suggesting a challenging economic situation in 2023. In December, exports fell 15.8% year-on-year to $29 billion. Because Vietnam has become a manufacturing platform for so many companies making high-tech and other consumer…

Six Trends for Vietnam’s Export Machine

UncategorizedOctober 17, 20223KViews 0Likes 0Comments

The question for Vietnam is no longer whether it’s going to become an export powerhouse. Exports in the first nine months of 2022 rose 17.2% to $282.3 billion, helping the economy expand almost 14% in the third quarter. Shipments to key markets like the U.S. are rising, key multinational firms are flocking to Vietnam to…

Vietnam Trade Recovers from Covid in 1st Half of 2022.

UncategorizedAugust 1, 20222KViews 0Likes 0Comments

After undergoing one of the toughest Covid-19 lockdowns in the world during 2021, Vietnam’s economy appears to be headed toward a full recovery, according to an analysis of first-half 2022 imports and exports by Trade Data Monitor, the world’s premier source of trade statistics. Vietnamese imports increased 15.5% year-on-year to $185.3 billion during the first…