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U.S. terms of trade with China decreased 1.5 percent in August 2019

September 19, 2019

In August 2019, U.S. terms of trade with China, which measure the change in the prices of U.S. exports to China relative to prices of imports from China, decreased 1.5 percent. This was largest decline since a 1.7-percent decrease in September 2018. U.S. terms of trade with China dropped 1.5 percent over the past 12 months.

1-month percent change in U.S. terms of trade indexes for selected countries and groups of countries, January 2018–August 2019

Month

Canada

Industrialized
Countries

European
Union

Germany

Pacific
Rim

Mexico

 Japan 

Latin
America

 China 

Jan 2018

1.0% 0.5% 1.2% 4.3% 0.4% 0.6% 0.5% 0.0% 0.8%

Feb 2018

0.3 -0.4 -0.3 -0.1 0.5 0.4 1.2 0.1 0.6

Mar 2018

1.2 0.3 0.2 0.7 0.3 0.1 -0.5 0.5 1.0

Apr 2018

-0.9 -0.3 0.1 -0.1 -0.4 0.5 -0.5 0.1 -0.2

May 2018

-2.4 -0.6 0.0 -0.1 0.3 0.5 0.0 0.2 0.2

Jun 2018

-0.1 0.1 0.2 -0.2 -0.3 0.5 -0.2 0.7 -0.6

Jul 2018

0.1 -0.1 0.0 0.0 -0.9 0.5 -1.0 0.1 -2.1

Aug 2018

1.3 0.5 -0.1 -0.5 -0.3 -0.1 0.0 0.6 0.0

Sep 2018

2.3 1.0 0.3 -0.3 -0.6 -0.9 -0.1 -0.9 -1.7

Oct 2018

-0.1 -0.1 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.5 0.1 0.1 1.0

Nov 2018

7.5 2.4 0.5 0.2 0.2 -0.6 0.0 0.1 0.2

Dec 2018

6.7 2.3 -0.4 0.0 0.1 -0.2 -0.3 0.9 -0.5

Jan 2019

-10.5 -3.8 0.2 0.5 -0.1 0.1 -1.4 -0.1 -0.3

Feb 2019

-6.6 -1.9 0.4 -0.2 0.5 0.1 1.0 -0.3 0.9

Mar 2019

-1.5 -0.4 0.1 -0.2 0.3 1.3 0.1 1.4 0.7

Apr 2019

-2.5 -0.7 0.5 1.0 0.4 -1.5 0.6 -0.5 0.6

May 2019

-0.3 -0.5 -0.4 0.2 -0.7 -0.6 -0.7 -1.2 -1.3

Jun 2019

4.4 1.5 0.0 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.1 -0.6 0.0

Jul 2019

0.9 0.3 0.6 1.0 0.8 0.5 0.9 1.0 0.4

Aug 2019

0.6 0.2 0.0 0.0 -0.4 -0.7 -0.8 -0.8 -1.5

Note:
Industrialized coutries = Western Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Pacific Rim = China, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Macao, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and the Asian Newly Industrialized Countries.
Latin America = Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

U.S. terms of trade with Japan declined 0.8 percent in August 2019, following a 0.9-percent increase the previous month. From August 2018 to August 2019, U.S. terms of trade with Japan fell from 99.5 to 99.0 (0.5 percent).

U.S. terms of trade with the European Union was unchanged in August, after increasing 0.6 percent in July.

U.S. terms of trade with Mexico declined 0.7 percent in August and 1.9 percent over the past year. U.S. terms of trade with Canada rose 0.6 percent in August but declined 0.7 percent over the past 12 months.

These data are from the International Price program. To learn more, see "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes — August 2019." Also see charts on U.S. import and export prices and New Measures of Prices for Global Trade on the Commissioner's Corner Blog. Import and export price changes may be revised in each of the 3 months after their initial publication. Terms of trade indexes measure the relative price of exports in terms of import prices for a specific country, region, or grouping. The indexes are calculated as one country, region, or grouping's all-export goods price index divided by the corresponding all-import goods price index on a scale of 100.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, U.S. terms of trade with China decreased 1.5 percent in August 2019 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/u-s-terms-of-trade-with-china-decreased-1-point-5-percent-in-august-2019.htm (visited October 10, 2024).

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