Raw Data: Imports and Exports to China

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Monika Bauerlein,
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I’m back! And I’ll bet you’ve all missed your charts this week. So here’s one for you:

I was curious to check out the overall effect of the Trump tariffs on China. As you can see, it took a few months for them to bite, but in the first three months of 2019 imports took a steep dive from about $45 billion per month to $30 billion per month. We’re definitely buying less from China thanks to Trump’s tariff on Chinese goods.

Exports to China have also declined, though it’s a little hard to see. The odd thing is that the decline began in early 2018 and doesn’t seem to have changed a lot after Trump enacted his tariffs. In any case, the drop in exports is almost 100 percent in agricultural goods, which fell by more than half between 2017 and 2018. No other sector has been strongly affected.