China’s US export engine stalls — ASEAN gets the overflow as tariffs redraw the map

The numbers just confirmed what markets already suspected: Trump’s tariff blitz is biting, and hard. Chinese exports to the U.S. cratered 21% in April, the sharpest drop in years, while exports to ASEAN, Africa, LatAm, and even the EU surged. The global supply chain is being rerouted in real time.

On the surface, China’s overall April export growth held up—rising 8.1% YoY. But strip out the spin, and it’s clear the headline resilience masks a fundamental shift. The U.S. is no longer China’s growth engine. The manufacturing juggernaut is diverting flow wherever the tariff pain isn’t.

Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand—still in the 90-day reciprocal tariff grace period—saw double-digit percentage surges in China-bound exports. These aren’t one-off distortions. This is structural repositioning.

From Dongguan to Dong Nai, factories are picking up and moving. U.S. buyers aren’t waiting for clarity—they’re rerouting supply lines to ASEAN now. Orders are being redirected, production footprints are shifting, and Vietnam looks set to become China’s offshore escape hatch for U.S.-facing goods.

And while the capital markets chase trade headlines, it’s worth noting the real economy is flashing red under the surface. Imports fell again, down 0.2%, signaling that domestic demand remains moribund. Factories are pausing, workers are being furloughed, and China’s export-led model is bracing for more attrition.

Beijing, sensing the pressure, has finally pivoted to stimulus mode—cutting rates and injecting liquidity into the system. But policy sugar won’t fix structural dislocation. With over 16 million Chinese jobs tethered to U.S. export demand, the stakes are enormous.

Tariffs are doing what decades of diplomacy didn’t: forcing a global reallocation of supply chains. The U.S. is no longer subsidizing Chinese dominance through trade tolerance. Trump’s 145% tariff wall has turned that tolerance into leverage.

This isn’t about a monthly print—it’s a supply chain divorce in motion. ASEAN is becoming the new preferred conduit. China’s role as default exporter to the world is under siege. And unless there’s real progress in the weekend trade talks, this isn’t just a rotation—it’s a reset.

China Pulls the Plug on the Data Feed—And That Should Set Off Every Alarm Bell.

According to the Wall Street Journal How Bad Is China’s Economy? The Data Needed to Answer Is Vanishing.

There's an unspoken contract in the capital markets: you don’t have to tell the truth—but you do have to talk. China just broke that contract.

Beijing has effectively gone dark. Land sales, foreign direct investment, unemployment, business confidence, financial market participation, even cremation data—all scrubbed or frozen. When you pull data this broadly and this deliberately, it’s not about optics. It’s about panic.

We’ve seen economic data massaged, reclassified, or delayed before. That’s the usual playbook when growth softens or when the central bank needs cover to ease. But when an economy shuts off the data spigot entirely, it tells you two things: (1) the internal damage is worse than feared, and (2) leadership fears the perception of reality just as much as reality itself.

Markets have long harbored suspicions about China’s reported growth numbers—"5%" has become a punchline. And anyone who’s been watching the property market unravel, youth unemployment spike, and private sector lending collapse knew something was off. But the data blackout confirms it: this is no soft patch—it’s a slow-moving, possibly systemic crisis.

For decades, China ran a five-pillar model: cheap exports, subsidized credit, a tightly managed currency, dollar-pegged debt stability, and state-driven infrastructure. It was never a free market—just a centrally managed illusion that worked as long as global capital played along and U.S. consumption remained insatiable.

But now that illusion is breaking. The U.S. is decoupling. Tariffs are back. Capital inflows are drying up. And China—the supposed global demand engine—is starting to look more like a black box than a beacon.

The irony? Western firms spent the last century dreaming of selling to China’s billion consumers. Instead, it was China’s factories—not its shoppers—that defined global growth for three decades. Now, the tide’s turning—and the CCP knows it.

The data blackout is the tell. You don’t go silent if you’ve got a functioning engine. You go silent when you’re out of tools and out of narrative—and you need time to hide the fire under the hood.

For markets, this changes the calculus.