Many countries have also followed this simple principle, in the interest of growth and prosperity, when doing business on a global scale. Today’s infographic from HowMuch.net charts the top imports and exports between the U.S. and China, pulled from the Observatory of Economic Complexity’s (OEC) global market data for 2017. Which items do you find most surprising?
Give and Take: The Trade Relationship of the U.S. and China
Two of the world’s largest superpowers today, the U.S. and China have typically had a long-standing trade relationship going back decades. The table below shows the top 10 exports the U.S. sent to China in 2017, along with the proportion of each item in the total export value of $132 billion. The top 10 items account for 39% of total exports to China.
The Top 10 Exports from the U.S. to China (2017)
While the majority of these are highly specialized, manufactured products─such as airplanes, integrated circuits, and semiconductors─the U.S. still relies on exporting many basic commodities such as gold, copper, and soya beans. Below is the list of the top 10 imported products from China, and the percent that each product accounts of the total $444 billion in 2017. These top 10 items make up 30% of all products imported from China.
The Top 10 Imports from China to the U.S. (2017)
China is best known for its electronics and technology-focused products─with electronics products accounting for two-thirds of the top 10 Chinese imports. In 2017, China also dominated all electronics imports into the U.S., claiming over 60% of the market. But how has the recent trade war impacted the imports and exports between the U.S. and China?
The U.S.-China Trade War Continues
At one point, China was the United States’ top trading partner in terms of the total value of imports and exports. Since the trade war began in 2018, China has fallen to third place. For example, soybean exports to China in 2019 are predicted to only reach a third of numbers seen in 2018, and the price of this commodity has been nearly cut in half. In the first nine months of 2019 alone, the U.S. saw a 13.5% drop in imported products from China, due to actual and threatened increased tariffs. In addition, U.S. exports to China dropped by 15.5%─a significant loss of $53 billion.
The Future of U.S.-China Trade
To date, the U.S. has enacted tariffs on over $550 billion worth of imported products from China. In response to the U.S. tariffs, China has added tariffs to $185 billion worth of exported goods from the United States. With the 2020 U.S. presidential election looming on the horizon, threats of increased tariffs seem to dominate headlines internationally. If these trends continue, many U.S. businesses—both at home and abroad in China—could find their bottom lines threatened by rising trade costs. on Both figures surpassed analyst expectations by a wide margin, and in January, the unemployment rate hit a 53-year low of 3.4%. With the recent release of February’s numbers, unemployment is now reported at a slightly higher 3.6%. A low unemployment rate is a classic sign of a strong economy. However, as this visualization shows, unemployment often reaches a cyclical low point right before a recession materializes.
Reasons for the Trend
In an interview regarding the January jobs data, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made a bold statement: While there’s nothing wrong with this assessment, the trend we’ve highlighted suggests that Yellen may need to backtrack in the near future. So why do recessions tend to begin after unemployment bottoms out?
The Economic Cycle
The economic cycle refers to the economy’s natural tendency to fluctuate between periods of growth and recession. This can be thought of similarly to the four seasons in a year. An economy expands (spring), reaches a peak (summer), begins to contract (fall), then hits a trough (winter). With this in mind, it’s reasonable to assume that a cyclical low in the unemployment rate (peak employment) is simply a sign that the economy has reached a high point.
Monetary Policy
During periods of low unemployment, employers may have a harder time finding workers. This forces them to offer higher wages, which can contribute to inflation. For context, consider the labor shortage that emerged following the COVID-19 pandemic. We can see that U.S. wage growth (represented by a three-month moving average) has climbed substantially, and has held above 6% since March 2022. The Federal Reserve, whose mandate is to ensure price stability, will take measures to prevent inflation from climbing too far. In practice, this involves raising interest rates, which makes borrowing more expensive and dampens economic activity. Companies are less likely to expand, reducing investment and cutting jobs. Consumers, on the other hand, reduce the amount of large purchases they make. Because of these reactions, some believe that aggressive rate hikes by the Fed can either cause a recession, or make them worse. This is supported by recent research, which found that since 1950, central banks have been unable to slow inflation without a recession occurring shortly after.
Politicians Clash With Economists
The Fed has raised interest rates at an unprecedented pace since March 2022 to combat high inflation. More recently, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned that interest rates could be raised even higher than originally expected if inflation continues above target. Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed concern that this would cost Americans their jobs, and ultimately, cause a recession. Powell remains committed to bringing down inflation, but with the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, some analysts believe there could be a pause coming in interest rate hikes. Editor’s note: just after publication of this article, it was confirmed that U.S. interest rates were hiked by 25 basis points (bps) by the Federal Reserve.
