Shanghai port is the busiest in the world. Activity there is closely monitored by financial analysts distrustful of official statistics and looking for clues as to what is really happening in the world’s second largest economy. For the past few days they will have been taken for a wild ride.
First there was mayhem as ships rushed to load up with containers, half of them destined to the United States, in an effort to beat tariff deadlines. By this weekend the place is reportedly at a near standstill. ‘Containers that missed the narrow window now sit idle in stacks along the docks. Many shippers are either pulling cargo back or scrambling for alternatives,’ according to the Chinese business magazine Caixin.
After a dizzying series of tit-for-tat increases, accumulated US tariffs on Chinese goods now stand at 145 per cent, while China has imposed 125 per cent on American imports. After its latest hike on Friday, Beijing suggested that it would be the last because at those levels it had effectively killed trade and there was no point in going higher.
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