Shipping Data Reflects Slowing Chinese Economic Growth

Effects of US–China trade war are becoming apparent

Workers pull a line from a cargo ship as it prepares to berth at a port in Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province on October 19, 2018. China's economy grew at its slowest pace in nine years in the third quarter, as a campaign to tackle mounting debt and trade frictions with the US had an effect. STR/AFP/Getty Images

The imposition of tariffs has sharply reduced trade between China and the United States, a fact most recently demonstrated in shipping data.

Steel and aluminum traffic to the United States from China in March fell 53 percent, compared with the same month in 2017, CNBC reported, citing newly released shipping figures from the Seabury Global Ocean Trade Database.