China’s exports keep rising despite Trump’s tariffs

The real but little recognized story this week is not that China’s exports slowed – a notion which has been generating doom-laden headlines around the world – but rather that they are still growing. Shipments abroad rose 4.4% year on year in August, the weakest pace in half a year, but still an expansion at a time when tariffs, political tensions and slowing global demand should be pulling them down.

Plenty of countries could only dream of 4% export growth in this environment. And China is achieving it under the weight of an unpredictable trade war with the United States.

That resilience is striking. Exports to the US collapsed 33% in August, the predictable consequence of Washington’s tariff hikes. Yet China’s overall trade kept expanding because exporters are selling more to the rest of the world.

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