A view of electric vehicles (EV) for export and containers that are in a port in Shanghai, China | Photocredit: Via Reuters
China’s export rose by 12.4% in March of a year earlier in a last-minute flurry of activity when companies hurried to defeat the increases in American rates imposed by US President Donald Trump, and analysts predict sharp setbacks.
Input fell by 4.3% to $ 211.3 billion in March, the customs management reported, far surpassed by the exports worth $ 313.9 billion, which lagged behind a trade surplus of $ 102.6 billion.
“But shipments will fall back in the coming months and quarters,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report. “We think it can take years for Chinese export to regain the current level.”
The trade surplus of China rose in 2024 to a record of $ 992.2 billion and exports climbed 5.4%and helped to make slow growth at home, because the country is slowly recovering from a crisis in its real estate market and persistent effects of the COVID-19-Pandemie.
After taking office, Mr Trump first ordered an increase in the rates by 10% on import from China. Later he raised that to 20%. Now China is confronted with 145% rates for the most of his export to the United States, based on the most recent revisions in Trump’s trade policy. China has responded to 125% rates on American products and other measures intended to squeeze the US where it hurts the most, such as checks in the export of critical minerals needed in the production of high -tech, such as the production of electric vehicles.
China’s trade surplus with the United States was $ 27.6 billion in March because exports increased by 4.5%. It registered a surplus of $ 76.6 billion with the US in January-March, although exports rose only 2.3% in the first two months of the year.
Direct trade with us to dive
“Savvy US Importers probably saw tariff increases arriving in April and the import for the front,” Economics said in a report, but that trend will probably fall because importers use their stocks while looking for the latest twists and turns in unpredictable American trade policy.
“As a result, it is likely that the direct trade between the US and China will crater from April,” said it.
The customs data showed that the total export from the second largest economy in the world increased by 5.8% in the first three months of the year of a year earlier, while the import dropped, leaving a trade surplus of $ 273 billion.
At the end of Friday, Mr Trump exempted most computer-related goods from the higher China-specific rates, including laptops, smartphones and the components needed to make them, although his administration says he is planning to announce them within a few days. Such products were good for nearly $ 174 billion in the US input from China last year.
Nevertheless, the hard American rates for Chinese products have asked questions about whether exporters can distract their goods to other overseas markets, because they give up selling American consumers because of the more than doubling the import duties.
Southeast -Asia benefits
The biggest increase in export in March was to the Southeast Asian neighbors of China, which saw the dollar value of shipments from China rise by 8%in March from a year earlier. Exports to Africa rose by almost 14% more than 11% and that to India.
A customs spokesperson, Lyu Daliang, said that China was confronted with a “complex and serious external situation”, but that the air would not fall. He pointed to the diversified export options of China and a huge domestic market.
When he was asked about the falling Chinese import, he said reporters in Beijing that China has been the world’s largest importer for 16 consecutive years, which increases the share in global imports from around 8% to 10.5%.
“At the moment and in the future, the Chinese import growth room is huge, and the large Chinese market is always a great opportunity for the world,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting Vietnam on Monday as part of a regional tour that will also take him to Malaysia and Cambodia, giving him the opportunity to stimulate commercial tires with other Asian countries who also have to deal with potentially steep rates, although Trump last week.
The export from China to Vietnam rose almost 17% of a year earlier last month, while input fell by 2.7%.
Trade data already shows some impact of the higher rates, with the export of lower added items such as shoes and clothing that fall, while shipments of computer chips, household appliances and vehicles have risen.
The export of China from rare earths fell by almost 11%in the first quarter of the year, because Beijing uses the controls on the strategic vital materials used in electric vehicles and other high-tech products.
Published – April 14, 2025 03:22 pm is
