logo
Chinese exports to US plunge 35% in May — largest drop since start of COVID

Chinese exports to US plunge 35% in May — largest drop since start of COVID

New York Posta day ago

China's exports to the US plunged in May as a temporary trade truce between the world's two largest economies proved 'too little, too late' to prevent chaos at ports.
Chinese shipments to the US plummeted 35% in May compared to the year before, according to government data released Monday.
That's the largest decline since February 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a supply chain crisis.
Advertisement
3 Cargo shipments piled up at a container terminal port in Shanghai, China.
AP
It comes after President Trump agreed to lower tariffs on China to 30% from 145% and Beijing slashed rates on the US to 10% from 125% for 90 days.
'The prohibitive tariffs were only lifted in mid-May, the damage was already done,' Tianchen Xu, senior economist at Economist Intelligence Unit, said.
Advertisement
The nation also reported a jump in exports to other parts of the world last month. Chinese shipments to Southeast Asia and European Union countries rose 15% and 12%, respectively. Those sent to Africa jumped more than 33%.
China saw the same boom in exports to other countries in April, when Chinese exports to the US dropped 21%.
'These are obviously transshipments to the US via 3rd countries. Thailand and Vietnam look bonkers,' Robin Brooks, senior global economy fellow at Brookings Institution, said in a social media post.
He nodded to a method used by exporters of sending goods to other countries facing lower tariffs before spiriting them off to the US, so they can skirt around Trump's steep taxes on China.
Advertisement
China reported its gross domestic product grew 5.4% during the first three months of the year as companies rushed to import goods ahead of the tariffs.
3 President Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in January.
AP
But the nation has faced a persistent deflation issue and a more hesitant consumer.
In a sign of weak demand, imports to China fell 3.4% in May from the year before – a far drop from the 0.2% dip the month before and much worse than expectations.
Advertisement
That landed China's trade surplus at $103.2 billion last month, growing from $96.2 billion the month before.
Imports from the US dropped more than 18%, shrinking China's trade surplus with the nation by 41.6% to $18 billion.
3 China's trade surplus reached $103.22 billion last month.
AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Trump's top trade officials are set to meet with their Chinese counterparts for negotiations in London on Monday.
It comes as tensions have reheated between the nations, with each accusing the other of breaching a temporary agreement reached in early May.
The White House has accused China of failing to fulfill a promise to resume rare earth shipments, while Beijing has torched the US' export curbs on AI chips and its move to revoke Chinese student visas en masse.
Fueling widespread uncertainty is a decision from a federal trade court late last month to block the majority of Trump's tariffs.
The Trump administration quickly filed an appeal and demanded the court place a stay on the order in the meantime, which was granted, keeping the tariffs in place for now.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Atomic Capital Supports Strategic Sale of UFirst, a Top Russian Children's Education Network
Atomic Capital Supports Strategic Sale of UFirst, a Top Russian Children's Education Network

Yahoo

time13 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Atomic Capital Supports Strategic Sale of UFirst, a Top Russian Children's Education Network

Atomic Capital acted as exclusive financial adviser in the successful sale of 100% of UFirst, a prominent operator in the Russian children's education sector. Moscow, Russia, June 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atomic Capital acted as exclusive financial adviser in the successful sale of 100% of UFirst, a prominent operator in the Russian children's education sector. UFirst, formerly part of the international education group English First (EF), was subsequently acquired and developed by its management team. Today, the network includes 15 learning centers located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk, offering a diverse range of programs such as English and Chinese language courses, programming, exam readiness, and MBA pathways tailored for children and teenagers. The Russian market continues to show significant investment interest among international businesses. Despite the current global challenges, Russia remains one of the most attractive locations for foreign investors and strategic partners, offering distinctive opportunities for business expansion, new project development, and effective capital deployment. Atomic Capital possesses deep experience and expertise in supporting sophisticated deals with the involvement of international companies, representing both buyers and sellers. The company assists clients in entering or exiting the Russian market, helps refine entry and exit strategies, and provides end-to-end financial and legal advisory throughout every phase of the deal, ensuring transparency and operational efficiency. Atomic Capital frequently collaborates with international firms—those aiming to establish or grow their presence in Russia, as well as those evaluating the sale of Russian assets. The company offers dedicated support at every step and is committed to securing optimal results for all participants. 'We are convinced that the role of a professional financial adviser in M&A extends well beyond the deal itself—it is about delivering long-term value for every stakeholder. We appreciate all parties for their high level of cooperation and professionalism. This project reflects coordinated teamwork and mutual trust,' commented Alexander Zaitsev, CEO of Atomic Capital. Atomic Capital welcomes companies from across the globe to work together in the Russian market, guaranteeing an individualized approach, transparency, and a consistently high level of service for every engagement. Irina Ayatova, Atomic Capitalpress@ (495) 488 66 33

Sending the National Guard is bad. Arresting 3,000 a day is worse.
Sending the National Guard is bad. Arresting 3,000 a day is worse.

Washington Post

time15 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

Sending the National Guard is bad. Arresting 3,000 a day is worse.

ICE agents making arrests in the parking lot of a Home Depot helped set off mass protests in Los Angeles. But that wasn't an isolated incident. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasingly taking actions at courthouses, restaurants and other spaces it previously stayed away from. President Donald Trump and his top aides have long favored harsh immigration policies. But what's shifted in recent weeks is that the administration has set a specific goal of ICE arresting at least 3,000 people per a quota may help Trump accomplish his goals, but it is leading to overly aggressive tactics that are deeply unsettling Americans across the country. It was perhaps inevitable that a president who promised to deport more people than his predecessors would implement an arrest quota. In the first months of Trump's tenure, the number of deportations and ICE arrests wasn't that much higher than when President Joe Biden was in office. That reportedly frustrated Trump administration officials, particularly Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. So last month, Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem privately gave ICE leaders — and then publicly confirmed — the goal of making 3,000 arrests per day. The administration also replaced ICE's leadership with people it felt would be more aggressive. That's a huge increase: The agency was making between 700 and 900 arrests per day at the end of Biden's term and the start of Trump's. And it appears this new policy is being carried out. ICE officials say they arrested 2,267 people on June 3 and 2,368 on June 4. It's possible these numbers are being inflated by the agency to please Trump and Miller. But there are articles in news outlets across the country about unprecedented ICE enforcement actions in their communities, so I believe the agency is going beyond its usual moves. But this policy is misguided. Quotas are problematic in many contexts. I support increased gender and racial diversity but am wary of organizations trying to hire a set number of women and people of color. In law enforcement, they are more troublesome. Police officers operating under quota systems feel pushed to make arrests for minor offenses. They sometimes target not the most dangerous people but those who are easiest to apprehend. That's what's happening now. Undocumented immigrants showing up to court hearings, working at clothing stores or looking to get Home Depot customers to hire them for day labor are probably not leading human trafficking organizations on the side. I am deeply concerned that ICE will soon start making arrests at schools and hospitals, since those are other places where you can arrest lots of people at once — few of whom will be armed or dangerous. I am opposed to these arrests in part because I don't support Trump's overarching goals of deporting 1 million immigrants a year and creating a climate in which other undocumented immigrants return to their native countries on their own. But you could argue that while Trump did not specifically campaign on 3,000 arrests per day, he promised to crack down on undocumented immigrants, and Americans elected him, so the public wants this. It's hard to determine why people voted for a candidate and what kind of mandate that gives them. But even if Trump campaigned explicitly on arresting 3,000 people a day, we should be wary of that policy — and not just because quotas generally aren't smart. This particular quota is excessive. If ICE arrested 3,000 a people a day, that would add up to about 1.1 million arrests after a year. There are about 11.7 million undocumented people in the United States. So if no individual was arrested more than once, about 9 percent of undocumented immigrants would be arrested in a given year under this policy. Arresting 9 percent of any group would almost certainly result in the other 91 percent being constantly worried about being arrested or jailed. And because about three quarters of undocumented immigrants are from Central or South America, some U.S. citizens and authorized residents who are Brown almost certainly will be unjustly arrested or questioned by ICE. This arrest quota echoes stop-and-frisk policies many police departments used to employ. At the height of that approach, there were about 350,000 stops of the 1.9 million Black New Yorkers. Basically every Black New Yorker had to be on guard for being stopped and frisked, and a judge invalidated the program on the grounds that it was racially discriminatory. Miller and Trump may want all 11.7 million undocumented immigrants to live in terror. But the rest of us shouldn't. The overwhelming majority of those people came to the United States seeking a better life. If we want to deter future immigrants, cracking down on employers who hire undocumented people and making it harder to enter the country in the first place are obvious solutions. Making life excessively difficult for people already here will probably discourage future migrants, but the U.S. government should not be in the business of rushing into restaurants and courthouses with guns to arrest people for the purpose of scaring others into leaving the country. Many Democratic politicians and political commentators have criticized Trump for deploying the National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, to stop the protests of ICE's actions in Los Angeles. But Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson rightly invoked the National Guard, without support from governors, to integrate schools and defend civil rights marches respectively. The problem isn't that Trump is using the National Guard; it's that he's using the National Guard to defend a policy that will target people of color indiscriminately and inhumanely. The quota must go.

Democrats ignored border politics. Now the consequences are here.
Democrats ignored border politics. Now the consequences are here.

Washington Post

time15 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

Democrats ignored border politics. Now the consequences are here.

Democrats have gotten the border issue so wrong, for so long, that it amounts to political malpractice. The latest chapter — in which violent protesters could be helping President Donald Trump create a military confrontation he's almost begging for as a distraction from his other problems — may prove the most dangerous yet. When I see activists carrying Mexican flags as they challenge ICE raids in Los Angeles this week, I think of two possibilities: These 'protesters' are deliberately working to create visuals that will help Trump, or they are well-meaning but unwise dissenters who are inadvertently accomplishing the same goal. Democrats' mistake, over more than a decade, has been to behave as though border enforcement doesn't matter. Pressured by immigrant rights activists, party leaders too often acted as if maintaining a well-controlled border was somehow morally wrong. Again and again, the short-term political interests of Democratic leaders in responding to a strong faction within the party won out over having a policy that could appeal to the country as a whole. When red-state voters and elected officials complained that their states were being overwhelmed by uncontrolled immigration over the past decade, Democrats found those protests easy to ignore. They were happening somewhere else. But when red states' governors pushed migrants toward blue-state cities over the past several years, protests from mayors and governors finally began to register. But still not enough to create coherent Democratic policies, alas. It's open season on former president Joe Biden these days, and he doesn't deserve all the retrospective criticism he's getting. But on immigration, he was anything but a profile in courage. Security advisers including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wanted tougher border policies starting in 2021. But political advisers such as chief of staff Ron Klain, who sought amity with immigration rights progressives in Congress and the party's base, resisted strong measures. Though Biden was elected as a centrist, he leaned left — and waited until the last months of his presidency to take the strong enforcement measures recommended earlier. Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump played shamelessly on public anxieties about the border. Some of his arguments, like claims that hungry migrants were eating pets, were grotesque. They were simply provocations. But Biden and Kamala Harris didn't have good answers, other than indignation. They had straddled the issue through Biden's term, talking about border security but failing to enact it, and the public knew it. Democrats finally came up with a bipartisan border bill in 2024 that would have given the president more authority to expel migrants and deny asylum claims, and more money to secure the border. Republicans, led by Trump, were shameless opportunists in opposing the bill. They didn't want Biden to have a win. In the end, Democrats didn't have the votes — or, frankly, the credibility on the issue. Biden took executive action in June 2024, limiting entry into the United States. But it was too late. He could have taken that action in 2021. Since Trump took office in January, he has been building toward this week's confrontation in the streets. ICE raids have steadily increased in cities with large migrant populations, as have nationwide quotas for arrests and deportations. Trump declared a national emergency on Inauguration Day that gave him authority to send troops to the border to 'assist' in controlling immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem seized every photo opportunity to convey a militarized approach to the coming clash. Over these months, the immigration issue has been a car crash skidding toward us in slow motion. Since his first term, Trump has clearly wanted a military confrontation with the left over immigration or racial issues. Gen. Mark A. Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped talk Trump out of invoking the Insurrection Act in 2020 to contain the unrest that followed the death of George Floyd. But this time, Trump faces no opposition. He is surrounded by yes-men and -women. The saddest part is that Democrats still have no clear policy. Some blue-state mayors and governors have pledged to provide 'sanctuary' for migrants, but they don't have good arguments to rebut Trump's claim they're interfering with the enforcement of federal law. In some cases, sanctuary has meant refusing to hand over undocumented migrants convicted of violent crimes, former DHS officials tell me. That's wrong. The courts have limited Trump's most arbitrary policies and his defiance of due process, but not his authority to enforce immigration laws. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) this week chose sensible ground to fight, by filing a lawsuit challenging Trump's authority to override gubernatorial power by federalizing National Guard troops when there isn't a 'rebellion' or 'invasion.' There is no evidence of such extreme danger — or that local law enforcement in Los Angeles can't handle the problems. But Newsom's smart pushback doesn't get Democrats out of addressing an issue they've been ducking for more than a decade: Do they have the courage to enforce the border themselves? Over the long run, taking border issues seriously means more immigration courts, and more border-control people and facilities — and a fair, legal way of deciding who stays and who goes. But right now, it means Democratic mayors and governors using state and local police to contain protests, so that troops aren't necessary — and preventing extremists among the activists from fomenting the cataclysm in the streets that some of them seem to want as much as Trump. Yes, of course, we need new bipartisan legislation to resolve the gut issue of how to protect the 'dreamers' and other longtime residents who show every day that they want only to be good citizens. But on the way to that day of sweet reason, Democrats need to oppose violence, by anyone — and to help enforce immigration policies that begin with a recognition that it isn't immoral to have a border.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store