The top 15 U.S. imports from China in 2024 were valued at more than $190 billion, or about 43 … More
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are in a tit-for-tat trade war, each fully willing to escalate, with the fight against inflation directly in the line of fire.
Just the top 15 imports from China in 2024 were valued at more than $190 billion, everything from cell phones to plastic tableware, video game consoles to furniture. China is either the first or second source for 12 of the 15. The 15 accounted for more than 43% of all imports from China last year – and the percentage from China has increased in eight so far this year.
More on those 15, but first a little context.
Today, Trump announced tariffs on imports from China that could top 100%. I never thought I would write a sentence like this.
That was in response to the Chinese government announcing 34% “retaliatory” tariffs on U.S. exports to China last week and vowing to “fight to the end.” I never thought I would write a sentence like this either.
That was in response to Trump’s 34% “retaliatory” tariffs on Chinese imports, also announced last week. Same for this sentence: Never thought I would write it.
But that wasn’t actually in response to anything, at least not directly. Trump made that announcement against all the nations of the world, essentially, which he said had been “ripping us off” for a long time.
One point of clarification. In the last couple of days, top spokespeople for the administration have suggested that the United States has a trade deficit with all the world’s nations.
Actually, the United States had trade surpluses with 131 trade partners and deficits with 101 in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. It just has quite large ones with China, Mexico and a few other nations. I wrote about them previously.
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But back to the testosterone-driven battle between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies.
There are other tariffs beyond the back-and-forth described above, including those from Trump’s first term that former President Biden left in place. And steel and aluminum tariffs. And the proposed fee on every Chinese-manufactured ship – China now manufactures the majority of the world’s ships – with a fee of $1 million for each U.S. port of call.
You get the idea.
Of course, this won’t only affect what Americans will be able to buy. I wrote previously about the U.S. exports likely to be caught up in this game of “one-downmanship.” China, for example, is the majority buyer of U.S. soybeans and the largest buyer in the primary aircraft category.
All totals in billions of dollars.
Here’s a chart to compliment the one above. It shows the value of the top 15 and the percentage that came from China in 2024.
Three are above 75% – the toys category, video game consoles and plastic tableware. Another five are above 40% – cell phone and related equipment, electric storage batteries, electric water and space heaters, misc. plastic articles, and the category that includes amplifiers, speakers and microphones.
While tariffs are issues at the price point upon entry, a wholesale price of sorts, the ability to fight inflation will certainly not be helped by an escalating trade war within China, and certainly not one with the entire world.
