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Comment by kayewiggin | Hacker News Reader

1.) The article is from January 2024.

2.) Some of the data that it's based on is up to 2023. And some are up to 2020

3.) There has been massive movement of manufacturing out of China between 2020 and 2024. I won't provide the references here, as there are too many to mention, from Japanese/Taiwanese/South Korean/European/American companies. They are easily chatgpted/googled. Also the reason why Shenzhen and Guangzhou has suffered deeper drop of real estate price and employment.

4.) In 2024, Mexico was the biggest exporter to US. United States was the biggest exporter to Europe. US was the largest export destination of Japan.

5.) Trump's 60%-100% tariff on China will accelerate the exodus of manufacturing

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Again, I really don't feel qualified to weigh in on most of these matters, though I will say that I generally do prefer direct citations if you'd like me to take the epistemic credibility of a claim more seriously than any other thing someone on the internet said (in other words, saying "go look it up" provides no more additional credibility than simply making the statement, and is thus kind of pointless, and in fact you take a not insignificant epistemic credibility hit for my purposes by suggesting that asking an LLM for factual information should be taken as a reliable source)

That said, it's interesting to see how the supply shocks of a global pandemic can shift these kinds of relationships. It doesn't surprise me that Mexico, being a huge source of food for the US, is the largest exporter to it. What I do wonder is how much exports pertain to manufacturing relationships. Like in the case of Mexico -> US, I think we wouldn't count e.g. stuff we buy for the produce section to be manufactured goods, but that would still count toward import/export numbers. Does this apply to other things too? Do things like IP count?

Very comprehensive list of how China has lost export power to US over the years. Remember that US has the largest consumer market in the world, more than double the second place, EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_marke...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2024/06/25/us-import...

- Chinese imports into the United States are down 19.78% from April of 2018 — when Trump first started imposing tariffs — to today, or $31.88 billion.

- Cell phones: Big winner is India. China has gone from a market share of 63.59% in 2018 to a still strong 42.14%. That’s a decline of 33.73%.

- Computers: Big winners are Taiwan, Vietnam. China has gone from a market share from 53.45% in the first four months of 2018 to 28.11%, a decline of 47.40%.

- Furniture: Big winner is Vietnam. China, meanwhile, accounted for 23.55% this year, down from 48.54% in 2018, a decline of 51.49% compared to a gain of 88.67% for Vietnam.

- TVs and monitors: Big winner is Vietnam. Mexico overtook China as the import leader in this category just before the pandemic and has remained on top. It gained market share from China, which fell from 53.68% in 2018, when it was No. 1, to 33.64%, a 37.32% decline.

- Digital storage devices: Big winners are Korea, Vietnam. China accounted for 39.50% of those imports in 2018, more than double that of any other nation. In 2024, its percentage is 4.23% and it ranks No. 9.

- Digital cameras: Yep, Vietnam again. China, meanwhile, has seen its share go from a majority, at 50.09%, to 17.57%, a decline of 64.92%.

> TVs and monitors: Big winner is Vietnam. Mexico overtook China as the import leader

This doesn't make sense to me, do they do some high level assembly of components? I think China took over global market of TV panels manufacturing for example:

With this transaction, Chinese manufacturers’ market share of the LCD panels used in TVs will increase from 66% to 72%, with nearly 100% share in ultra-large 90 – 115 inch screens.

The market share of Chinese OLED panel manufacturers is forecasted to increase from 47.9% this year to 50.2% next year, surpassing the OLED shipment share of Korean companies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyshih/2024/10/13/chinese-ma...

It sounds like it could be that China losing in cheap assembling tasks, but significantly gaining in high tech manufacturing.

That sense to be possible thesis esp given a comment earlier about china effectively laundering some goods to countries with deficits to china

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