CHINA/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “China reported its largest-ever annual trade surplus with the U.S. last year while its overall imbalance with the world shrank, potentially strengthening the Trump administration’s case for tougher penalties and other trade actions against Beijing.
A global recovery led by the U.S. provided a shot in the arm for Chinese exporters last year, boosting China’s economy. Rising American demand, in particular, pushed up Chinese shipments, expanding China’s trade surplus in goods with the U.S. by 10% to $275.8 billion in 2017, according to Chinese customs data released Friday [1-12-18].
That figure, a record for the nearly five decades for which such data exist, marks the U.S.’s largest trade deficit with any trading partner. By comparison, China’s overall foreign trade surplus contracted 17% as higher prices of oil, iron ore and other commodities raised the value of inbound shipments from countries like Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
The widening of the China-U.S. trade imbalance comes as U.S. and Chinese officials and business groups warn of sharper clashes over trade between the world’s largest economies…
President Donald Trump has promised sterner measures to curb the U.S.’s chronic trade imbalance with China.”
-Lingling Wei, “China Reports Biggest-Ever Annual Trade Surplus With U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 12, 2018 07:50am