Uncategorized Archives - Trade Data Monitor

Steel Trade Trends in 2025

UncategorizedNovember 15, 202467Views 0Likes 0Comments

Shake-up in Global Steel The world of steel trade is in for a shake-up. New climate rules in Europe, the prospect of ramped-up U.S. tariffs on steel and an excess of Chinese steel imports mean companies around the world must calibrate their trade strategies in 2024. With the U.S. locked in protectionism and the…

50 U.S. States Have 50 Trade Economies

UncategorizedSeptember 24, 2024398Views 0Likes 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, 2024899Views 0Likes 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…

China’s EV Export Boom is Driving up Demand for RoRo Ships

UncategorizedApril 15, 2024778Views 0Likes 0Comments

China’s electric car export boom has fueled demand in the country for automobile transport ships, driving up prices for foreign buyers. Overall, in March, Chinese ship exports fell 5.9% year-on-year by quantity in March to 399, after steadily rising for most of this decade. By value, they increased 34% to $3.1 billion. So called Roll-on/roll-off,…

What’s Behind the High-Tech Trade Slump?

UncategorizedFebruary 16, 2024819Views 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…

China Hikes Iron Ore, Copper Imports Amid Car Building Boom

UncategorizedJanuary 23, 20241KViews 0Likes 0Comments

In the somewhat gloomy December and annual China trade statistics released in the second week of January was buried a piece of data that hearkened back to the boom years of Chinese commodity consumption: China is buying a lot more iron ore and copper. In December, China boosted iron ore imports 11.1% year-on-year to 100.9…

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

UncategorizedDecember 20, 20232KViews 0Likes 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, 20231KViews 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, 20231KViews 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…

China Boosts Imports of Raw Materials by Double Digits

UncategorizedNovember 13, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

China in October dramatically increased imports of fossil fuels, industrial metals and agricultural commodities, a run on raw materials that if sustained will have a major impact on prices and supply chains. China continued to increase its ferocious energy consumption, hiking imports of natural gas 120.1% year-on-year to 8.8 million tons, coal 23.3% to 36…

China Doubles Coal and Gas Imports as Global Trade Putters

UncategorizedJuly 27, 2023950Views 0Likes 0Comments

The world’s biggest exporter reported another month of dismal trade figures for June. Chinese exports declined 13% year-on-year in the month to $285.3 billion, and imports fell 6.9% to $214.7 billion. The decline was driven by a massive drop in consumer spending in the U.S. and Europe, caused by inflation, fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, and…