Uncategorized Archives - Trade Data Monitor

TDM’s Top 10 Trade Trends to Watch in 2026

UncategorizedJanuary 13, 202643Views 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…

Is Global Trade Too Strong for Tariffs?

UncategorizedOctober 15, 2025536Views 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, 2025691Views 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.…

China Ramps Up Exports to Vietnam Amid Transshipment Worries

UncategorizedAugust 7, 20251KViews 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…

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, 20242KViews 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…

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…

China Hikes Iron Ore, Copper Imports Amid Car Building Boom

UncategorizedJanuary 23, 20242KViews 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, 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…

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…

China Boosts Imports of Raw Materials by Double Digits

UncategorizedNovember 13, 20233KViews 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…

Why Global Trade in Rare Earth Elements is Growing and Diversifying

UncategorizedMarch 13, 20232KViews 0Likes 0Comments

Higher prices for rare-earth minerals and strategic support from the U.S. and other governments have sparked further investment, production, and international trade, diversifying supply for minerals that are essential to high-tech production. Rare earths elements, such as dysprosium, lanthanum and cerium, are 17 elements used as niche ingredients in magnets, batteries and catalytic converters. These…