China’s export growth slows last month as tariffs take toll

China’s export growth slowed to a three-month low in May as US tariffs slammed shipments, while factory-gate deflation deepened to its worst level in two years, heaping pressure on the world’s second-largest economy on both the domestic and external fronts.

US President Donald Trump’s global trade war and the swings in Sino-US trade ties have in the past two months sent Chinese exporters, along with their business partners across the Pacific, on a roller coaster ride and hobbled world growth.

Underscoring the US tariff impact on shipments, customs data showed that China’s exports to the US plunged 34.5 per cent year-on-year in May in value terms, the sharpest drop since February 2020, when the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic upended global trade.

Total exports from the Asian economic giant expanded 4.8 per cent year-on-year in value terms last month, slowing from the 8.1 per cent jump in April and missing the 5.0 per cent growth expected in a Reuters poll, customs data showed on Monday, despite a lowering of US tariffs on Chinese goods which had taken effect in early April.

“It’s likely that the May data continued to be weighed down by the peak tariff period,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING.

Song said there was still front-loading of shipments due to the tariff risks, while acceleration of sales to regions other than the United States helped to underpin China’s exports.

Imports dropped 3.4 per cent year-on-year, deepening from the 0.2 per cent decline in April and worse than the 0.9 per cent downturn expected in the Reuters poll.

Exports had surged 12.4 per cent year-on-year and 8.1 per cent in March and April, respectively, as factories rushed shipments to the US and other overseas manufacturers to avoid Trump’s hefty levies on China and the rest of the world.

While exporters in China found some respite in May as Beijing and Washington agreed to suspend most of their levies for 90 days, tensions between the world’s two largest economies remain high and negotiations are underway over issues ranging from China’s rare earths controls to Taiwan.

Trade representatives from China and the US are meeting in London on Monday to resume talks after a phone call between their top leaders on Thursday.

China’s imports from the US also lost further ground, dropping 18.1 per cent from a 13.8 per cent slide in April.

Zichun Huang, economist at Capital Economics, expects the slowdown in exports growth to “partially reverse this month, as it reflects the drop in US orders before the trade truce,” but cautions that shipments will be knocked again by year-end due to elevated tariff levels.

China’s exports of rare earths jumped sharply in May despite export restrictions on certain types of rare earth products causing plant closures across the global auto supply chain.

The latest figures do not distinguish between the 17 rare earth elements and related products, some of which are not subject to restrictions. A clearer picture of the impact of the curbs on exports will only be available when more detailed data is released on June 20.

China’s May trade surplus came in at $103.22 billion, up from the $96.18 billion the previous month.

Other data, also released on Monday, showed China’s imports of crude oil, coal, and iron ore dropped last month, underlining the fragility of domestic demand at a time of rising external headwinds.

Beijing in May rolled out a series of monetary stimulus measures, including cuts to benchmark lending rates and a 500 billion yuan low-cost loan programme, aimed at cushioning the trade war’s blow to the economy.

China’s markets showed muted reaction to the data. The blue-chip CSI300 Index climbed 0.29 per cent and the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.43 per cent.

Producer and consumer price data, released by the National Bureau of Statistics on the same day, showed that deflationary pressures worsened last month.

The producer price index fell 3.3 per cent in May from a year earlier, after a 2.7 per cent decline in April and marked the deepest contraction in 22 months.

Cooling factory activity also highlights the impact of US tariffs on the world’s largest manufacturing hub, dampening faster services growth as suspense lingers over the outcome of US-China trade talks.

Retail sales growth slowed last month as spending continued to lag due to job insecurity and stagnant new home prices. These headwinds were evident in China’s car sales for May, which grew 13.9 per cent year-on-year, slowing from a 14.8 per cent increase the previous month, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed.

Sluggish domestic demand and weak prices have weighed on China’s economy, which has struggled to mount a robust post-pandemic recovery amid a prolonged property slump and has relied on exports to underpin growth.

Reuters