The U.S. midterm elections have resulted in split control of Congress. While that won't change trade policy significantly - Democrats have few tools at their disposal - it could cause complications in passing USMCA and other deals. China is winning the trade war with America, shown by surging exports to the U.S. and a drop in imports. It is also looking to promote growth in its imports globally by cutting duties.

In logistics Hapag-Lloyd managed to hold station in terms of profitability, but only due to significant cost cutting, while Wallenius Wilhelmsen showed the cost of higher fuel charges. Expeditors meanwhile showed disciplined pricing is not always enough to ensure expanding profitability.

5 years: President Xi Jinping has launched the China International Import Expo with a commitment to increase China’s imports in order to “increase resident’s income and consumption capacity” including tariff reductions. That's effectively a reflationary tax policy. Chinese imports in the 12 months to Sept. 30 reached $2.13 trillion after rising 7.1% annually in the past three years. By comparison the U.S. imported $2.50 trillion over the same period after a 3.0% increase. At current rates of growth China could be a bigger customer globally than America, the so-called “trade singularity”, within five years. The trade war with the U.S., which represented 19.1% of China’s imports year-to-date, may hinder President Xi’s ambitions though there is significant room to reduce import tariffs. Indeed, the government has already cut duties on $130.35 billion of capital goods from Nov. 1 after reducing duties on $64.23 billion of consumer goods in June. (Panjiva Research - Policy)

$2.18  billion: The U.S.-China trade war reached a crescendo in September with the imposition of duties on around $260 billion of bilateral trade at rates of 5% to 10% (referred to as list 3 products). That came on top of duties on $100 billion of trade in July (list 1) and August (list 2) at a 25% rate. The expansion of the U.S. trade deficit with China to a record $40.2 billion in September is a sign the trade war went against America that month. Indeed, U.S. exports of the products covered by list 1 fell 66.3% on a year earlier in September and list 2 products by 50.3%. List 3 saw a slide of just 0.7% though that followed two months of expansion and duties were only applied from Sept. 24.

Much of the $2.18 billion decline in list 1, 2 and 3 products was explained by commodities including soybeans ($1.07 billion) and the autos sector ($216 million). Notably products not covered by the three lists surged 36.7% higher. That could concerns among exporters not facing tariffs yet that there may not be an “off-ramp” from widening duties, raising the stakes for the Dec. 1 meeting scheduled between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping