OAN Staff James Meyers
12:50 PM – Monday, June 9, 2025
New reports have indicated that China’s exports to the U.S. plummeted in May. This sharp declines comes as a temporary truce between the world’s two largest economies arrived “too late” to prevent major port disruptions.
Chinese shipments to America fell a staggering 35% in May, compared to 2024, according to government data that was released Monday.
It marks the largest decline since February 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic caused a supply chain crisis.
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This also comes after President Donald Trump lowered tariffs on China to 30% from 145% and Beijing cut rates on the U.S. from 125% to 10% 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.
Additionally, China reported an increase in exports to other nations across the globe. Chinese shipments to Southeast Asia and European Union nations increased 15% and 12%. Experts sent to African countries jumped more than 33%.
In April, the communist country saw the same increase when Chinese exports to the U.S. fell 21%.
“These are obviously transshipments to the U.S. via 3rd countries. Thailand and Vietnam look bonkers,” Robin Brooks, senior global economy fellow at Brookings Institution, said in a social media post.
Brooks cited that exporters used a method of sending goods to other countries that are facing smaller tariffs before the goods would be sent to the U.S. A move used to get around Trump’s high tariffs on China.
During the first three months of 2025, Beijing reported that its gross domestic product increased 5.4%.
However, China has been dealing with a repeated deflation problem and a cautious consumer.
As a sign of weak demand, imports dropped from 3.4% last month from the year prior, which is a bigger drop from the 0.2% dip the month before and much worse than expectations.
Meanwhile, imports from the U.S. dropped over 18%, shrinking China’s trade surplus with the nation by 41.6% to $18 billion.
The U.S. is also slated to meet with China for negotiations on trade in London on Monday.
The latest meeting comes as both sides have accused the other of breaching the terms of their temporary agreement that was reached in May.
The Trump administration has accused China of not resuming rare earth shipments, while China has been critical of the U.S.’ export curbs on AI chips and its move to revoke Chinese student visas.
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