U.S.-China Trade Starting To Bottom After Year Of Global Tariff War

On 2 April 2025, President Donald Trump initiated "Liberation Day" tariffs, imposing substantially higher tariffs on goods being imported into the United States from every nation on Earth. But most significantly, upon China, whose government responded by imposing its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports. A new global tariff war between the planet's two largest national economies was begun.

Since then, trade between the two nations has dramatically fallen off, as metaphorically illustrated in the following video:

The last twelve months has been characterized by falling trade between the U.S. and China. But in April 2026, there was a new development. The level of trade between the U.S. and China, as measured by the trailing twelve month average of the total value of goods exchanged between them, began to bottom. The level of trade is still falling, but much more slowly as trade between the U.S. and China stabilizes at a lower level than it was at the beginning of 2025.

The following chart shows that new development, presenting the monthly data for the combined value of goods exchanged between the U.S. and China along with its trailing twelve month average for the period from January 2017 through April 2026.

We think the level of trade between the U.S. and China will bottom in 2026-Q2. It may already have, but we won't get the data to confirm it for at least another month or two.

References

U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (FT900). U.S. Trade in Goods with China, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Nominal Figures, Total Census Basis. [Online database]. Accessed 9 May 2026.