Trade Data Monitor’s Top 10 Trade Trends Going Into 2022

Amid U.S.-China tensions, Brexit, and other political threats to the world economy, global trade looks as resilient as ever heading into 2022.

Just look at the supply chain crisis of 2021. When crippling gridlock seemed possible, what the world got instead was a lesson in the staying power of ports, trucking companies, and shipping lines across the world.

The $8.6 trillion global logistics industry, it turns out, remains robust enough to get goods from any producer to almost any buyer or consumer on earth. The World Trade Organization now expects global trade to increase 4.7% in 2022, after rising 10.8% in 2021. Total trade in goods and services is expected to reach $28 trillion for 2021 according to UNCTAD.

Even demand-side news has been good. The world’s richest economy, the U.S., is still riding the benefits of trillion-dollar stimulus packages. U.S. gross domestic product is believed to have grown 7% in the last quarter of 2021, up from 2% in the preceding quarter. And when American consumers are buying, the whole world benefits.

Here are Trade Data Monitor’s top 10 ongoing trade trends at the start of 2022:

1.   China Close to Passing U.S. as World’s Top Importer

In 2001, the year China joined the WTO, it was already the world’s fourth biggest importer, behind the U.S., Japan, and France. Global trade leaders figured it wouldn’t take long for a country of billion-plus consumers to open itself up and become the world’s biggest importer. Instead, the U.S. has continued to be the world’s biggest buyer of goods, the biggest reason that Washington maintains leverage in trade negotiations. However, in the first 10 months of 2021, the U.S. imported $2.3 trillion worth of goods, compared to $2.2 trillion for China. It appears highly likely that in 2022, China will at last pass the U.S. to become the world’s top importer.

2.   Asian Manufacturing Diversifies

The new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, is set to knock out over 90% of tariffs in 15-nation Asian bloc led by China. The treaty, which does not include the U.S., will accelerate a trends set in motion by trade tensions between China and the U.S., and worries about supply chains. These have pushed manufacturers to build plants in countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. For example, Chinese shipments of mobile phones, the ultimate complicated manufactured high-tech consumer good, fell 19.7% in November to $16.5 billion from $20.6 billion. The country still shipped out 88.7 million phones, but that was a 18.8% decline from 109.2 million a year ago. The proliferation of new supply chains across Asia is why Chinese imports from ASEAN countries in November rose 34.9% to $38.5 billion from $28.5 billion, the biggest jump in imports from any major region. By comparison, imports from the U.S. rose 22.1%, to $17.8 billion from $14.6 billion, while shipments from the European Union imports increased only 6.8% to $27.3 billion from $25.6 billion.

3.   Commodity Prices Boom Amid Scramble for Resources

The work-from-home economy and industrial activity picking up have generated a booming demand for power around the world, despite fears about climate change. And that’s forced up prices. For example, Chinese natural gas imports rose 17.8% to 10.7 million tons from 9.1 million tons a year ago, while, by value, they increased a whopping 169.8%. At the same China, cut crude oil imports 8% to 41.8 million tons from 45.4 million tons, although imports by value rose 73.7% to $24.6 billion from $14.2 billion. Prices for everything from soybeans to iron ore rose in 2021, part of a wave of inflation sweeping the globe that is likely continue into 2022.

4.   U.S. Hikes Energy Exports

 From gas fields in Texas to coal mines in Appalachia, the U.S. has always been energy rich. Now, it’s becoming a chief supplier of energy to countries around the world, trade statistics show. With new terminals for exporting gas and coal, the U.S. has emerged as the world’s dominant, and most diversified, energy supplier. The U.S. exported $189.4 billion worth of mineral fuels in the first 10 months of 2021, up 53% from $123.4 billion over the same period in 2021. Coal exports increased 49% to $7.3 billion. Energy experts the U.S. to remain dominant in energy production and exports for decades to come.

5.   High-Tech Trade Booms

The prevalence of lockdowns, boosted further by the omicron crisis, has solidified people’s habits around the world. Home workers have been buying computers, routers, and other gear to transform their home spaces into offices. The recent omicron wave of the Covid-19 virus will perpetuate people’s habits and buying patterns into 2022. In the first nine months of 2021, Chinese high-tech imports increased 24% to $560.4 billion; U.S. imports went up 16% to $419.2 billion; and European Union imports rose 18% to $332.8 billion.

6.   Cars Go Electric

Global electric car sales are expected to top $800 billion by 2027, more than double the current value of the market. Overall, around five million electric cars are expected to be sold in 2021, driven by evolving technology, and fears about climate change. And it’s showing up in trade statistics. The top market, Germany, increased imports of electric cars 138% to $6.1 billion in the first nine months of 2021. The second biggest market was the UK, which hiked imports 121% to $5.2 billion. The world’s top exporter was Germany, which increased shipments 110% to $10.6 billion.

7.   Batteries Needed

That’s boosted the trade in materials related to making batteries. Chinese exports of lithium batteries increased 78% to $25 billion from $14 billion during the first 11 months of 2021. It’s getting raw materials from Latin America. The world’s top two exporters of the raw material needed to make electric batteries — lithium carbonate — are Chile and Argentina, according to an analysis by Trade Data Monitor. But now the Latin American countries have been changing where they ship the material crucial to manufacturing electric vehicles. Increasingly, they’re sending lithium to China, as that country develops its own battery supply chain, instead of other key markets like Japan, South Korea and the U.S., according to TDM.

8. U.S. Consumers Lead Recovery from Covid.

U.S. imports have driven global manufacturing and the recovery of the global economy. In the first ten months of 2021, U.S. imports increased 21.4%, rising to $2.3 trillion from $1.9 trillion. U.S. consumers have been buying a lot of everything. Furniture imports, for example, were up 26% to $60.9 billion, part of the transition to a stay-at-home economy. Vehicle imports increased 16% to $227.7 billion. Even if it’s passed by China in 2022, there’s no sign that the U.S. will cease to be a lucrative consumer markets for the world’s top manufacturing corporations.

9. Fears of Supply Chain Meltdown Overblown

After a summer of stories about container ships crammed together by ports and in canals, trade rebounded in the fall. For the first 10 months of 2021, the Port of Los Angeles, the top U.S. port, registered imports of $226.9 billion, up 20% from $188.4 billion during the same time period in 2020. (TDM’s database includes shipments by port for several countries.) Other U.S. ports registered similar increases. It seems unlikely that the container shipping industry will retreat in the forseeable future. It is the anchor of the hyperglobalization that now dominates the economy.

10. Coal is… Back

Despite the renewed focus on the climate, coal trade boomed in 2021. The world simply doesn’t haven’t enough fuel capacity, even with the addition of renewable sources like wind, hydro, and solar. U.S. coal exports, for example, increased 49% to $7.3 billion over the first ten months of 2021. China more than tripled imports of coal by quantity, hiking purchases to 35 million tons in November, up from 11.7 million tons in the same month a year ago. By value, shipments grew a whopping 761.8%, rising to $5.9 billion from $681 million. China’s top sources of coal are Indonesia, Russia, Mongolia and the U.S. Chinese coal imports from the U.S. increased 993.4% in the first ten months of 2021, to 8 million tons, from 733,789 tons over the same time period in 2020, according to TDM data. Imports from Indonesia leapt 60.3% and those from Russia grew 82.2% while shipments from Mongolia fell 43%.