In the first seven months of this year, Chinese exports to the United States fell by 186%, this data, so that many people feel that the export situation is grim.
Is it really bad?Are Europe and the United States and other countries deliberately not buying Chinese goods?
In fact, we must note that this reduction includes the influence of exchange rate factors.
Compared with the first half of last year, the renminbi has depreciated by about 7% on average. This means that even if the volume of exports remains the same, the amount of exports denominated in US dollars will decrease accordingly due to changes in exchange rates.
As a result, the actual decline in exports was only about 12 per cent, taking into account exchange rates.
From this perspective, the impact of the depreciation of the renminbi on China's exports is twofold.
On the one hand, the depreciation has increased the competitiveness of China's export commodities and helped to increase the number of exports. On the other hand, a depreciation of the exchange rate will reduce the value of exports denominated in US dollars.
More importantly, we can see from the import data of the United States that the overall import of the United States has fallen significantly, not just because it does not buy Chinese goods.
This can be seen in the tariffs announced by the United States.
The significant decline in U.S. tariff revenues suggests that total U.S. imports have taken a hit in general, not just China's.
The slow development of the international economy and the intensification of the war situation have led to a decline in the global total. The United States has been affected not only by China's **, but also by other countries.
More important is the reason for the United States itself.
In the past few years, the United States has experienced high inflation, and in order to control inflation, the Federal Reserve has accelerated the pace of interest rate hikes. As a result, Americans have to deal with rising consumer and mortgage spending, resulting in a decline in purchasing power.
In addition, the uncertainty of the economic situation, the high loan burden, and the increasing pressure on personal finances have made the American people remain cautious in their spending. This further compresses the demand for imported goods, which affects tariff revenues.
To put it simply, Americans can't afford it, it's not that we can't sell it.
The situation in Europe is somewhat similar.
The latest data showed that Europe's overall imports fell by 10. in euro terms in the first half of the year4%。The decline outpaced the decline in China's exports, underscoring the serious economic challenges facing Europe.
The reason for this is that, in addition to internal factors such as inflation, the outbreak of the energy crisis in Europe caused by the continuous promotion of sanctions by the United States has also had a significant impact on Europe's import demand.
The energy crisis has also had an impact on Europe's import demand, but the initiator of this crisis is the United States, which has pushed for rounds of sanctions against Russia, resulting in Europe losing its energy supply to Russia.
But the United States itself stayed out of the way, and instead received a lot of gas export revenues as a result. It is not an exaggeration to regard this as the harvest of Europe by the United States.
In addition, Europe's energy is straining and soaring, and companies are facing higher production costs and competitive pressures.
In order to reduce costs, some companies choose to move out of Europe and relocate production bases. This further reduced the demand for imported goods in Europe, negatively impacting the overall import value.
Based on the above views, it can be concluded that China's exports to European and American countries are not the so-called decoupling of Western countries such as Europe and the United States, and the main reason is the decline in domestic purchasing power in Europe and the United States, resulting in a decrease in import demand.