The earliest indicators for China’s economy showed the pace of expansion slowing this month, highlighting the reasons behind policy makers’ decision to add stimulus in the face of escalating trade tensions.
“Domestic businesses were dented by tightening financing conditions, while trade conflict hits exports and hurts market sentiment," according to Fielding Chen at Bloomberg Economics, who aggregates the earliest available indicators on business conditions and market sentiment.
China could switch to other tactics like barring U.S. service sector companies or intentionally driving down the value of its currency, Goldman Sachs economists said. The U.S. is threatening to put tariffs on $150 billion of Chinese goods, but China can’t retaliate in kind because it imported only $131 billion in U.S. goods last year. […]
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