Beijing reiterated this week that
Chinese manufacturers and companies operating in China may have found a way around President Trump’s steep tariff barriers by tinkering with supply chains to export Chinese components to countries like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico and then reexporting them as finished goods into the United States, an analysis of data from the US International Trade Commission and the International Trade Centre has revealed.
The research, conducted by Nikkei, found that between January and March 2019, Chinese exports to the US dropped by $15.2 billion, or about 12 percent year on year, as a result of Washington’s increasingly tough tariffs, with machinery, electrical equipment, furniture, toys, and automobiles each taking substantial hits of between $322.1 million and $5.77 billion in losses.
However, during the same period, China’s exports of these same categories of goods to Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico enjoyed explosive growth, with these three countries exports to the US also rising dramatically.
Similarly, Chinese exports of manufactured goods to Taiwan grew by $1.
