Maersk CEO Reveals `Ironic’ Twist in U.S. Trade War With China - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/maersk-ceo-reveals-ironic-twist-in-u-s-trade-war-with-china
The man running the world’s largest container-shipping company says he has access to data that shows Donald Trump has so far failed to wean the U.S. off Chinese imports.
Soren Skou, the chief executive of A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, says Chinese exports to the U.S. actually grew 5-10 percent last quarter. Meanwhile, U.S. exports to China fell by 25-30 percent.
“It’s an ironic development,” Skou told reporters in Copenhagen on Wednesday. “But after Trump has turned up the volume, the U.S. has only increased their imports from China even more.”
There are two reasons behind the development, Skou said.
Firstly, the U.S. economy is doing well so consumers there have more money to spend on imports, he said. Secondly, a lot of the really big U.S. companies are hoarding Chinese imports to buy as much as possible before tariffs kick in, he said.
“When we talk to our customers, we hear from many of them that they want to bring in a lot of goods before the end of the year,” Skou said.
Maersk transports about a fifth of the world’s seaborne manufactured goods, so the company is in a unique position to gauge changes in global trade flows. Given Maersk’s reliance on free trade, Skou hasn’t shied away from criticizing Trump’s tariffs in the past.