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"China's economy can't avoid the headwinds" of slowing growth and a mounting trade war with the U.S., said Chao Deng at The Wall Street Journal. Right now, Chinese exports look healthy because American firms have been placing orders months in advance to avoid increasingly expensive U.S. tariffs. President Trump has so far placed duties of 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, a levy that will rise to 25 percent in the new year, and is threatening tariffs on $257 billion more. "Many Chinese firms that rely on the U.S. market are worried about difficult days ahead." Analysts say it's only a matter of time before advance orders fizzle and clients start canceling purchases; one Chinese maker of wine refrigerators thinks his revenues could fall 40 percent this year. For Chinese President Xi Jinping, there's a big upside to this trade pain, said Bloomberg. Market observers and even the ruling Communist Party have long predicted that China's breakneck rate of growth would dip at some point. When that inevitable slowdown arrives, Xi will be able to point at Trump and "blame 'external forces' for internal problems."
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