Chinese exports unexpectedly fell in October after months of front-loading US orders to beat President Donald Trump’s tariffs, in a stark reminder of the manufacturing juggernaut’s reliance on American consumers even as it woos buyers elsewhere, reports Reuters. The world’s second-largest economy has pushed hard to diversify its export markets since Trump won last November’s presidential election, bracing for a resumption of the trade war that dominated his first term in office, and seeking closer trade ties with Southeast Asia and the European Union.
But no other country comes close to matching China’s annual sales of more than $400 billion in goods to the US, a loss economists estimate has cut China’s export growth by around 2 percentage points, or roughly 0.3% of GDP.
The October customs data on Friday underlined that point, as China’s exports shrank 1.1%, the worst performance since February, reversing from an 8.3% rise in September, and missing a forecast for 3.0% growth in a Reuters poll.