Beijing (AFP)

The news should delight Donald Trump: China announced Tuesday that its trade surplus vis-à-vis the United States, the subject of strong bilateral tensions, had dropped in 2019 (-8.5%), in a context of trade war .

The announcement comes just before the expected signing in Washington on Wednesday of a long-awaited preliminary agreement between the two powers, which have been fighting for almost two years with punitive customs duties.

Donald Trump had started hostilities in 2018 with the particular aim of rebalancing bilateral trade, causing reprisals from Beijing and concern about world markets.

In 2019, Chinese goods worth $ 418.5 billion crossed the U.S. border, up from $ 122.7 billion the other way, according to the China Customs Administration.

China's trade surplus with the United States thus stood at 295.8 billion dollars, against 323 billion the previous year.

In December alone, it amounted to 23.2 billion dollars, a decrease compared to November (24.6 billion) and October (26.4).

According to Washington, China is committed to the preliminary trade agreement to buy $ 200 billion in American goods - including agricultural products worth 40 to 50 billion.

The Trump administration must, however, continue to impose punitive 25% tariffs on Chinese products worth $ 250 billion in annual imports.

Sign of de-escalation however: Washington removed Monday the label of "currency manipulator" which it had stuck in Beijing last year.

- 'Pressure' -

A senior customs official, Zou Zhiwu, told a press conference on Tuesday that Chinese imports of American products had increased in late 2019.

Chinese purchases of US soybeans and pork notably "increased significantly" in December, he said.

Referring to the impact of trade tensions, he agreed that they had "put some pressure on Chinese foreign trade and on companies that trade a lot with the United States".

Signing of preliminary agreement, says Zou, will have "significant and positive scope" for the global economy, ensuring that increased imports "made in the USA" would have no impact on third countries .

In total, the volume of goods traded by China in 2019 fell slightly over one year. The Asian giant's trade surplus with the rest of the world, stable, was established at 421.5 billion dollars.

In December alone, China's total exports climbed 7.6% year on year. This is much more than the estimate of analysts surveyed by the financial information agency Bloomberg (+ 2.9%).

In the other direction, the Asian giant's imports experienced a spectacular jump of + 16.3% last month, again well beyond the forecasts of experts.

- Pork and beef -

A figure that "is more the result of higher import prices than an increasing volume of imports," notes Julian Evans-Pritchard, an analyst at Capital Economics.

"It would therefore be premature to conclude that there has been a clear recovery in domestic demand," he said.

Over the whole of 2019, total imports from China fell (-2.8% year-on-year), while exports increased slightly (+ 0.5%).

In a context of swine fever, a disease that has decimated the country's livestock, meat imports from the Asian giant have also reached peaks last year.

China imported a total of 2.11 million tonnes of pork (+ 75% year-on-year). Beef deliveries also jumped (+ 60%).

But despite encouraging figures for Chinese foreign trade in December, experts call for caution.

Nick Marro, of the British cabinet The Economist Intelligence Unit, points out the weak basis of comparison, especially in terms of exports.

"It was around the same time last year that we started to see the impact of the trade war," he said.

And if Chinese companies have been able to partly diversify by selling their goods in Europe and Southeast Asia, he believes that these markets will not be able to fully compensate for the losses recorded in the United States.

© 2020 AFP