China's Bermuda Triangle?

At a glance

When looking at trade between two countries, the value of exports should be lower than the value of imports (because in between the two are costs for shipping and insurance).
In recent years, the value of China's exports to the US have exceeded the value of US imports from China. This anomaly suggests up to 30% of China's exports to the US are disappearing before they arrive.
The anomaly is not evenly distributed across sectors, and it did not start at the same time for all sectors. The pattern suggests that it is closely linked to trade tariffs.
Trade tariffs do not affect the value of US imports (as the tax is paid by US consumers after the imports arrive and their value has been assessed). However, taxing trade may encourage rerouting of supply chains. What China considers an export to the US may be considered an import from somewhere else in the US data. The patterns in the data anomaly support this scenario.
This means that in assessing the economic impact of any future trade taxes on China (or other countries), US import data is probably a more reliable measure than other countries' export data.
In calculating the damage from trade taxes, it does not matter who is actually selling to the US. What matters is who the US thinks they are buying from.

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