China trade balance for June, in yuan terms: CNY 261.9 bn
- expected CNY 187bn, prior was CNY 156.1bn
- Big surplues, lower than expected import growth will have impacted on this
Exports y/y: +3.1% y/y … miss
- expected 4.0%, prior was 3.2%
Imports y/y: +6.0% y/y … even bigger miss
- expected 12.6%, prior was 15.6%
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USD terms
China trade balance for June: USD41.6bn
- expected $27.72bn, prior was $24.92bn
Exports: +11.3% y/y ….. beat
- expected 9.5%, prior was 12.6%
Imports: +14.1% ….. miss
- expected 21.3%, prior was 26.0%
I said yesterday that regardless of this data Trump will not back down on the trade war. Lots of folks have, and continue to, underestimate Trump. But, he is following through on his threats, like 'em or not. He escalated the war earlier this week with a list of another 200bn USD in tariffs on China goods.
So, yeah, I may have been wrong about the irrelevance of this data … the bigger surplus will be even more of an encouragement to trump to steam ahead on his threats.
Trump is in the UK at present, creating havoc for his good friend Theresa May by saying what a great PM BoJo would be. So, that might keep him occupied for coming days. But, more angry trade tweets to come, make no mistake on that. Perhaps over the weekend?
