Global Trade (Still) In Freefall: Imports Collapse At Largest Three US Ports
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: global growth and trade are grinding to a halt.
Back in September, we flagged comments from WTO chief economist Robert Koopman who warned that after a “burst of globalization”, we are now “at a point of consolidation, maybe retrenchment.”
“It’s almost like the timing belt on the global growth engine is a bit off or the cylinders are not firing as they should,”Koopman concluded.
Trade growth, the WTO observed, has averaged just 3%/year since 2010. That compares rather unfavorably with around 6% a year from 1983 to 2008. “Few see any signs that trade will soon regain its previous pace of growth, which was double the rate of economic expansion before 2008. In 2006, global trade volumes grew 8.5%, compared with a 4% expansion in global GDP,” WSJ pointed out at the time.
Besides being proof that trillions in global QE – not to mention DM central bankers’ descent into NIRP-dom – has been utterly insufficient to provide the global economy with the defibrillator shock it apparently needs, this also suggests that we may have entered a new era, where lackluster global growth and trade are systemic rather than cyclical.
For the latest bit of evidence that global trade is indeed in free fall, look no further than the container terminals at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif. and around New York harbor which handle more than 50% of seaborne freight coming into the US. As it turns out, “peak” season turned out to be anything but. Here’s WSJ:
For the first time in at least a decade, imports fell in both September and October at each of the three busiest U.S. seaports, according to data from trade researcher Zepol Corp. analyzed by The Wall Street Journal. Combined, imports at the container terminals at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif. and around New York harbor, which handle just over half of the goods entering the country by sea, fell by just over 10% between August and October.
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