China’s exports fell in October for the first time in eight months, official data showed Friday, as trade tensions simmered ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with US President Donald Trump. Shipments dropped 1.1 percent year-on-year, missing a Bloomberg forecast that had predicted a 2.9 percent rise. Meanwhile, imports rose 1.0 percent, below September’s reading and short of the 2.7 percent increase expected by analysts, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. The decline comes as China and the US reached a temporary detente in their trade war following Xi and Trump’s meeting in South Korea at the end of October. The leaders agreed to suspend a range of tariffs and trade measures for a year, putting a temporary pause on months of tit-for-tat actions. In the weeks leading up to the meeting, Beijing had imposed new restrictions on rare earth exports, a critical sector for defense and automotive industries. In response, Trump threatened a 100 percent tariff on additional Chinese goods, though the plan was later scrapped after the summit, which Trump described as a “great success.” Under the agreement, Washington halved tariffs on Chinese goods to 10 percent, while Beijing eased rare earth restrictions and lifted additional tariffs on US agricultural products, including soybeans, providing relief to American farmers. Data showed China’s imports from the US fell 11.6 percent month-on-month in October, while its exports to the US rose 1.8 percent. Economists noted that Chinese exporters had been frontloading trade to avoid higher US tariffs. The country’s shipments to the US jumped 8.6 percent in September from August after falling 11.8 percent on-month from July. “It seems the frontloading finally faded in October. As the trade war is put on hold for one year, exports will likely normalise,” Zhang said. But, he warned: “Now that export momentum weakens, China needs to rely more on domestic demand.”
China’s Exports Decline for First Time in Eight Months
