A brief relaxation of prices between the United States and China has sparked a burst of transpacific commercial activity, but deeper tensions and long-term disturbances of the supply chain continue to blur the perspectives.
A 90 -day truce in the American trade war in China sparked precipitation to move goods across the Pacific, businesses rushing to take advantage of the temporarily lowered prices.
President Donald Trump mainly fell back on a trade war that he started with China, reducing American rights to Chinese imports from 145% to 30%. China, on the other hand, has reduced its prices on American products from 125% to 10%.
Short-term relief already creates training effects as container racks such as Marseille, France, CMA CGM and Hamburg, Germany, Hapag-Lloyd would have praised the break and expected a peak in reservations while companies are trying to ship before the end of the temporary break.
“You did not go anything from China to the United States to 145%,” David Roche, president of the financial analysis company Quantum Strategy, told Singapore, Global Finance. “At 30%, something is shipped, but much less than when we were 8% before Trump takes up his duties.” Roche noted that a modest increase in container traffic could soon appear in the reservations of Port of Los Angeles, which reflect the demand of about three weeks.
But he warned: “My feeling is that we will see a small recovery, but not a large recovery, and you will always have empty shelves, and you will always have increased inflation in the United States following these prices.”
Inflation data in April offered a mixed image. While inflation from one year to the next was slightly cooled at 2.3% – just under 2.4% forecast – prices increased further 0.2% per month, missing estimates of 0.3%. Basic inflation, excluding volatile prices for food and energy, was maintained stable at 2.8%.
The scenario seems less dark compared to last month when Fitch Ratings lowered its forecasts for world GDP in 2025 to 1.9% in the midst of concerns concerning the climbing of Trump’s pricing policy. The company’s chief economist, Brian Coulton, said on Tuesday in an analyst note that, although the last 90 -day break reduces the actual American rate by 23% to 13%, it is still much higher than 2.3% observed in 2024.
This does not mean that the trade war, “which already has a tangible economic impact, is over,” said Coulton, citing the basic rates of 10% remaining and the specific to the industry still in force.
The American secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, insists that American-Chinese discussions are part of a broader strategy of “economic decoupling for strategic necessities”. He stressed that “generalized decoupling” is not an American policy, but the administration remains focused on the substitution of imports to reduce dependence on Chinese products and strengthen American manufacturing.
Even with the recent return, China remains the most pricing trading partner in the United States. According to Fitch, the current ETR for Chinese imports is 31.8%, taking into account the rights inherited on steel, cars and a reference rate of 10% applied. Certain electronic devices such as smartphones and computers have been excluded from the last series of prices.
Although the temporary agreement can cool tensions and stimulate short -term transpacific navigation, experts warn that structural damage to global supply chains – and the strategic gap between the two largest economies in the world – probably heal in just 90 days.
Analysts of the UOB Group based in Singapore brought a more optimistic tone after the break in American-Chinese-Chinese trade tensions, providing for a short-term economic boost for China while exporters rush to production and before in the United States during the window.
“It is enough to say that we now see an increase in the increase in our growth forecasts of 2025 for China of 4.3%,” said UOB analysts in a note, although they have declared that any formal revision will wait from other data. Despite the temporary stay, the UOB expects China to continue to focus on interior resilience and the diversification of exports, supported by continuous political efforts.