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TDM Insight: China is Becoming a ‘Factory for Factories’

Uncategorized3 hours ago2Views 0Likes 0Comments

Another Strong Month The Artificial Intelligence revolution gets the headlines and is being credited for another robust trade month. In July, Chinese exports increased 23.9% year-on-year to $397.9 billion. Its monthly surplus was $112.5 billion, putting it on track for another trillion-dollar annual surplus. “Export and import values remain elevated, helped by soaring global demand…

Trade Statistics Show Inflation

UncategorizedJune 30, 2026196Views 0Likes 0Comments

AI is Still Driving Trade Despite an increase in protectionism and tariffs, global trade has persisted at a steady pace thanks to a boom in sales of new technologies related to artificial intelligence. The war in the Middle East and subsequent energy crisis have only made economies more focused on restructuring in an environmentally friendly…

Is The U.S.-China Trade War Over?

UncategorizedMay 13, 2026356Views 0Likes 0Comments

U.S.-China Summit This Week When Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, trade, for once, won’t be the primary topic. Among more severe crises in play are the U.S. war with Iran, the rise of artificial intelligence, and China’s desire to annex Taiwan. After the Trump’s imposition of triple-digit tariffs last year, Beijing…

Vietnam’s Superpower: Versatility

UncategorizedMarch 27, 2026575Views 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, 2026598Views 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, 2026772Views 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, 20261KViews 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…

The Lessons of China’s First-Ever Trillion-Dollar Trade Surplus

UncategorizedDecember 12, 2025856Views 0Likes 0Comments

The Trillion-Dollar Surplus After falling year-on-year in October, China’s exports rebounded in November enough that it is almost certain that for 2025, the country that was mired in poverty when you and I were born will become the first nation ever to record a trillion-dollar trade surplus. The number is just a number, but it’s…

Silver Bullet: A Special Report on Mining and Metals Trade in Latin America

UncategorizedNovember 12, 20251KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Why China is Still Buying If you’re pessimistic about global trade, you’ve likely been paying too much attention to the Beijing-Washington trade spat. The headline number: In September, Chinese exports to the U.S. declined 27% year-on-year. However, even including that number, China’s monthly exports increased 8.3% year-on-year to $328.6 billion. The truth is that there…

Chinese Exports Down 1.1% in October

UncategorizedNovember 12, 2025922Views 0Likes 0Comments

The Chinese export juggernaut finally started to show the impact of protectionism and weaker Western consumer markets in October. A week after Presidents Trump and Xi settled a new trade deal that cut tariffs and put off their trade war for a year, China reported a 1.1% year-on-year drop in exports to $305.3 billion. To…

Is Global Trade Too Strong for Tariffs?

UncategorizedOctober 15, 20251KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Global Trade Can Take a Punch This month, markets have swerved to adjust to the threat of new U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Yet, global trade keeps finding a way. In September, although shipments to the U.S. plummeted, China’s monthly exports increased 8.3% year-on-year to $328.6 billion. One way of looking at the stubborn performance…

Casualties of the U.S.-China Trade War: 36 Million Phones

UncategorizedSeptember 17, 20251KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Please Dial a New Number As U.S. and Chinese negotiators try to find a way out of tariff gridlock, one thing is certain: The smartphone supply chain has shifted significantly, upending the practices and expectations of manufacturers, logistics firms, and retailers. China’s exports of mobile phone fell 11.6% year-on-year in August to 60.8 million sets.…

Global Coal Trade is Finally Faltering

UncategorizedAugust 25, 20251KViews 0Likes 0Comments

China Cuts Coal Imports For years, as governments around the world embraced clean energy technology, coal trade held steady because China was still buying. As the rest of the world turned away from coal, China boosted imports to power its booming electrification, and a vibrant new industry of electric vehicles and batteries. In 2024, it…

China Ramps Up Exports to Vietnam Amid Transshipment Worries

UncategorizedAugust 7, 20252KViews 1Like 0Comments

Made in Vietnam (or China) At a time when trade officials around the world are closely watching Vietnam’s evolving place in the global trading system, Chinese exports to the new Asian economic power in June boomed 23.8% year-on-year to $16.3 billion. The U.S.-China trade war has pushed attention of U.S. trade negotiators toward manufacturing powers…

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

UncategorizedJune 19, 20252KViews 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…

Chinese Exports to U.S. Plunge Along With Smartphone Shipments

UncategorizedMay 19, 20252KViews 1Like 0Comments

First Impact of U.S. Tariffs Chinese shipments to the U.S. plummeted 21% year-on-year in April as the impact of Washington’s new import tariffs started to punish the world’s largest exporter. However, as Beijing was quick to point out, China compensated by selling more to its economic partners in Southeast Asia. In a striking coincidence, Chinese…

China Hikes Oil & Gas Imports

UncategorizedApril 23, 20252KViews 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…

Tech Sector Resilient as Chinese Imports Fall Steeply

UncategorizedMarch 12, 20252KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Rocky Waters It’s a perilous time for the global trading system. President Trump has imposed an across-the-board tariff of 20%, in two tranches of 10%, on U.S. imports of Chinese goods. There are threats of more action, on microchips, drugs, and automobiles. Lesser degrees of protectionism in Europe, Canada and elsewhere are also denting confidence…

Record Chinese Global Surplus Neared $1 Trillion in 2024

UncategorizedJanuary 27, 20253KViews 1Like 0Comments

The Trillion-Dollar Surplus In 2024, China recorded the biggest global trade surplus in economic history at $992 billion, according to preliminary data released Monday by Beijing. The gap, beating the previous record of $838 billion in 2022, is almost certainly unsustainable. Amid worsening relations with the U.S., Europe and Canada, it may never pass the…

Chinese Demand Falters as Imports Decline

UncategorizedDecember 16, 20242KViews 1Like 0Comments

Trade in a Time of Geopolitical Adjustment The focus of the global trade world is, rightly, on President-elect Donald Trump and the U.S. debating and deciding how far they’ll go in enacting new protectionist measures. But an issue that could upend geopolitics -- with unintended consequences that will affect big issues like war and peace,…

Trump Election Gooses Trade– Before Tariffs Hit

UncategorizedNovember 7, 20242KViews 1Like 0Comments

This week’s election of Donald Trump as the U.S.’s 47th president is almost certainly likely to lead to another trade war with China, and further tariffs on American imports. During the campaign, Trump said his favorite word was tariff and floated a universal 10% tariff and specific duties on Chinese imports as high as 60%.…

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…

50 U.S. States Have 50 Trade Economies

UncategorizedSeptember 24, 20242KViews 1Like 0Comments

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…

China Hikes Metal Exports Amid Record Surplus

UncategorizedJuly 15, 20243KViews 1Like 0Comments

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…