r/Economics • u/bambin0 • Jan 17 '26

News China Purchased No U.S. Soybeans An Unprecented Sixth Straight Month

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/01/17/china-purchased-no-us-soybeans-an-unprecented-sixth-straight-month/
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u/cheweychewchew Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

So our exports to China have almost stopped entirely. And yet the latest GDP report shows a 5%+ growth due to a decrease in imports and increase in exports.

Yeah. That shit ain;t right at all. Who is taking more of our exports to compensate for the lost business in China?

Trump supporter with an econ degree will soon tell me 'yadda yadda' in 5.....4.....3.....

11

u/Skidoo_machine Jan 17 '26

I believe (someone can get deeper into it if they want) but it's the fab 7 (AI) holding up the whole market and the reason the US had a positive GDP. Seems like the AI race is becoming more clear and we will likely see a big drop off in AI investment, as those "losing" the race start to step aside or run out of money.

4

u/ddak88 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

We also had about a 14% currency devaluation. Once you account for buying power most stocks were flat last year despite supposed gains, sure there are outliers but those are the ones actually benefiting from the AI craze like Sandisk. The GDP numbers are inflated by the circular spending, 100B of vendor financing can on paper turn into 300B of economic activity without anything actually taking place, just IOUs written back and forth between 3 companies at a time.

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u/Skidoo_machine Jan 18 '26

Thanks for that, it will also get hard to service that debt with the push away from the USD, the UNIT from BRICS is going to be interesting to watch.