Nick Marsh

This basically shows that even though trade with the United States did take a bit of a hit, a 20% drop or so, China more than made up for it with a massive increase in exports to the rest of the world, in particular places such as Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America as well.

Clearly, that's not great news for domestic workers and manufacturers in those places.

But it is a vindication of China's long-held belief that, yes, the American consumer market is a very big, very important market.

But it's not the only one.

And on the evidence of these figures, China has plenty of willing customers around the world.

The Customs Authority in China pointed out a rise in the export of technologies such as solar panels, electric vehicles, you know, green technology, basically artificial intelligence technology, where China is really rapidly making huge strides in that area.

and also robotics.

That's quite right.

Yeah, I suppose the 20% drop in trade with the United States means that China is selling less to America, which is one of Donald Trump's goals.

You know, he wants the United States to be less reliant on the Chinese economy and therefore, he says, protect America.

American workers and domestic manufacturers.

Let's not forget the United States runs an absolutely enormous trade deficit.

So he'll take some comfort in these figures in that sense.

But you're absolutely right.

The fact that China has effectively gone, well, it's a shame we can't sell to you as much as we used to.

But look at all these other parts of the world that are very willing to buy from us and are buying from us in record numbers.

OK, we'll have to leave it there.

Nick Marsh, thanks for joining us on Marketplace.

Thanks very much.

This is the difficulty for the EU because you've got the US imposing tariffs left, right and centre, including on European exports.