Saturday, February 5, 2011

China Trade Imbalance


Click to enlarge.

This shows the trade imbalance between the USA and China. The trend line in red is the 12 month moving average.

Here are the top 10 fastest growing exports to China. I'm ranking them by comparing the amount we exported in 2009 vs. the average amount we exported annually from 2005 to 2008.


Click to enlarge.

Note that they are all food and energy. Nuts.

You can't see it by looking at the chart, but soybeans were where the action was. At $9.2 billion, they represented roughly 13% of our exports to China in 2009.


Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: EXPCH / IMPCH
U.S. Census Bureau: Exports to China

9 comments:

Troy said...

Speaking as a neo-Georgist, BNSF was a killer buy.

WB didn't just buy fixed industrial-age capital, he bought one of the two available bleedin' connectors of the #1 and #2 economies (with tie-ins to #11 and 14 too.

The sad thing tho is that our trade deficit with China -- $270B is 40% larger than our total ag GNP ($200B).

And as the yuan goes from 6 to 4 this decade, they will be buying more stuff for the same amount of $.

This is why I'm not "short" Chinese real estate. They're going to have a firehouse of wealth coming at them for the remainder of the century.

EconomicDisconnect said...

Mark,
The last two weeks you have been red hot! Great stuff and you always make me really think. Thanks.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Troy,

Speaking as a neo-Georgist, BNSF was a killer buy.

China has our cash. We have the ag. Railroads would seem to be the best way to transfer it. Sigh.

And as the yuan goes from 6 to 4 this decade, they will be buying more stuff for the same amount of $.

If history is a guide, maybe not. Soybean prices have risen much, much faster than the movements in the yuan. Although things may change, the trend is not exactly in China's favor.

Put another way, soybean farmers apparently have far more pricing power than Chinese factories, at least right now.

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

I was about to put up this first chart today when I realized that it would be a bit scary if food was becoming our fastest growing export.

I was not exactly relieved when I saw energy in there too. Sigh.

nanute said...

This is rather encouraging. (Not.) Not only do the Chinese hold a significant amount of our debt, now you are telling me that it looks like they are intent on starving us to death. Hell, let's go for the trifecta: Start selling military hardware.

Stagflationary Mark said...

nanute,

Hell, let's go for the trifecta: Start selling military hardware.

Perhaps I should have offered a top 20 fastest growing exports list.

"Nuclear fuel materials" - #12

"Parts for military-type goods" - #18

No joke.

In Hell's Kitchen said...

nuts ? can you say "banana republic" ?

and your other chart on civilian
employment clearly shows Dumbya busted
the labor market pretty good. I doubt
it can be salvaged.

Stagflationary Mark said...

In Hell's Kitchen,

I am a Banana Republican. That's what I say if people ask me what party I'm in.

It was once a joke of mine. Sort of. Nobody ever seems to laugh.

Stagflationary Mark said...

My Political Party