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With Americans Stuck at Home, Trade With China Roars Back
Reducing trade with China was supposed to happen in 2020. But demand for Chinese goods has soared amid pandemic lockdowns.
Cargo containers at the Port of Oakland in California. U.S. consumer demand is so strong that many supply chains are clogged, snarling major ports and delaying delivery of holiday gifts by several weeks.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times
By Ana Swanson
WASHINGTON — American imports from China are surging as the year draws to a close, fueled by stay-at-home shoppers who are snapping up Chinese-made furniture and appliances, along with Barbie Dream Houses and bicycles for the holidays.
The surge in imports is another byproduct of the coronavirus, with Americans channeling money they might have spent on vacations, movies and restaurant dining to household items like new lighting for home offices, workout equipment for basement gyms, and toys to keep their children entertained.
That has been a boon for China, the world’s largest manufacturer of many of those goods. In November, China reported a record trade surplus of $75.43 billion, propelled by an unexpected 21.1 percent surge in exports compared with the same month last year. Leading the jump were exports to the United States, which climbed 46.1 percent to $51.98 billion, also a record.
That surge has defied the expectations of American politicians of both parties, who earlier this year predicted that the pandemic, which began in China, would be a moment for reducing trade with that country and finally bringing factories back to the United States.
“The global pandemic has proven once and for all that to be a strong nation, America must be a manufacturing nation,” President Trump said in May. “We’re bringing it back.”
But despite Mr. Trump’s restrictions on Chinese goods, including tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of its imports, there is little sign that global supply chains are returning to the United States. Instead, the prolonged effects of the pandemic on the United States appear to have only reinforced China’s manufacturing position.
China employed draconian lockdowns and extensive surveillance to shake off the effects of the pandemic earlier this year, allowing its factories to reopen at a large scale more quickly than businesses in America, where the disease is still running rampant. With many American companies, especially those based on services, crippled by coronavirus, consumers are pumping their money into online shopping for manufactured goods instead.
Mary E. Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, said that U.S. imports from the world were on track to be lower this year than in 2019, but that China’s overall share of U.S. imports would likely increase.
“Overall, China’s quick economic recovery and its dominance as a source for products that Americans have turned to during the pandemic have outweighed the dampening effect of Trump’s tariffs,” she said.
Consumer demand is so strong that it has overwhelmed the capacity of the cargo industry, leading to a record spike in shipping rates. The surge in shipments is clogging many supply chains, snarling major ports and delaying delivery of holiday gifts by up to several weeks.
At the Port of Los Angeles, the country’s largest processor of container cargo and the gateway for many Chinese goods, shipping containers carrying Chinese imports are stacked like Legos in piles six high. Truckers jam the parking lots, waiting hours to pick up goods, which are then dispatched across the continent.
October was the busiest month in the port’s 114-year history, and traffic has remained high. On Dec. 1, dockworkers were busy unloading 19 vessels, compared with 10 to 12 on a normal day, said Gene Seroka, the port’s executive director. Twelve more ships waited in the harbor, which, on average, had been waiting about 48 hours beyond their scheduled arrival, he said.
“We’re going through a time that truly is unprecedented,” Mr. Seroka said. “You’re trying to stuff 10 pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag. This ordering and replenishment is bigger than anything we’ve seen, and now it coincides with holidays.”
www.nytimes.com
Reducing trade with China was supposed to happen in 2020. But demand for Chinese goods has soared amid pandemic lockdowns.
Cargo containers at the Port of Oakland in California. U.S. consumer demand is so strong that many supply chains are clogged, snarling major ports and delaying delivery of holiday gifts by several weeks.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times
By Ana Swanson
- Dec. 14, 2020
WASHINGTON — American imports from China are surging as the year draws to a close, fueled by stay-at-home shoppers who are snapping up Chinese-made furniture and appliances, along with Barbie Dream Houses and bicycles for the holidays.
The surge in imports is another byproduct of the coronavirus, with Americans channeling money they might have spent on vacations, movies and restaurant dining to household items like new lighting for home offices, workout equipment for basement gyms, and toys to keep their children entertained.
That has been a boon for China, the world’s largest manufacturer of many of those goods. In November, China reported a record trade surplus of $75.43 billion, propelled by an unexpected 21.1 percent surge in exports compared with the same month last year. Leading the jump were exports to the United States, which climbed 46.1 percent to $51.98 billion, also a record.
That surge has defied the expectations of American politicians of both parties, who earlier this year predicted that the pandemic, which began in China, would be a moment for reducing trade with that country and finally bringing factories back to the United States.
“The global pandemic has proven once and for all that to be a strong nation, America must be a manufacturing nation,” President Trump said in May. “We’re bringing it back.”
But despite Mr. Trump’s restrictions on Chinese goods, including tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of its imports, there is little sign that global supply chains are returning to the United States. Instead, the prolonged effects of the pandemic on the United States appear to have only reinforced China’s manufacturing position.
China employed draconian lockdowns and extensive surveillance to shake off the effects of the pandemic earlier this year, allowing its factories to reopen at a large scale more quickly than businesses in America, where the disease is still running rampant. With many American companies, especially those based on services, crippled by coronavirus, consumers are pumping their money into online shopping for manufactured goods instead.
Mary E. Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, said that U.S. imports from the world were on track to be lower this year than in 2019, but that China’s overall share of U.S. imports would likely increase.
“Overall, China’s quick economic recovery and its dominance as a source for products that Americans have turned to during the pandemic have outweighed the dampening effect of Trump’s tariffs,” she said.
Consumer demand is so strong that it has overwhelmed the capacity of the cargo industry, leading to a record spike in shipping rates. The surge in shipments is clogging many supply chains, snarling major ports and delaying delivery of holiday gifts by up to several weeks.
At the Port of Los Angeles, the country’s largest processor of container cargo and the gateway for many Chinese goods, shipping containers carrying Chinese imports are stacked like Legos in piles six high. Truckers jam the parking lots, waiting hours to pick up goods, which are then dispatched across the continent.
October was the busiest month in the port’s 114-year history, and traffic has remained high. On Dec. 1, dockworkers were busy unloading 19 vessels, compared with 10 to 12 on a normal day, said Gene Seroka, the port’s executive director. Twelve more ships waited in the harbor, which, on average, had been waiting about 48 hours beyond their scheduled arrival, he said.
“We’re going through a time that truly is unprecedented,” Mr. Seroka said. “You’re trying to stuff 10 pounds of potatoes in a five-pound bag. This ordering and replenishment is bigger than anything we’ve seen, and now it coincides with holidays.”
With Americans Stuck at Home, Trade With China Roars Back (Published 2020)
Reducing trade with China was supposed to happen in 2020. But demand for Chinese goods has soared amid pandemic lockdowns.
