Accessible Version
Assessing the Extent of Trade Fragmentation, Accessible Data
Figure 1. Indexed Share of Imports from China and the U.S.
The left exhibit shows annual indexed shares of imports from China for selected countries. The data range from 2016 to 2022, inclusive, and are indexed to 100 in 2017. The U.S. line (dashed wide blue) drops off by about 20 points from 2018-2019, and holds mostly through the rest of the sample. The Japan line (dotted thin red) varies over time, peaks in 2020 just over 100 and reaches its lowest point in 2022 around 85. The EU line (dotted medium purple) rises over time, with the steepest increase occurring between 2019 and 2020, and reaches its maximum value of 120 in 2022. The Australia and New Zealand line (dashed medium dark gold) also increases rapidly (more so than any other line) and peaks at almost 130 in 2020, before declining slightly, though still staying above all the other lines. Finally, the rest of world line (solid thin black) goes up and down a little but holds around 100.
The right exhibit shows annual indexed shares of imports from the U.S. for selected countries. The data range from 2016 to 2022, inclusive, and are indexed to 100 in 2017. The China line (solid thick blue) drops steeply from 2017 through 2019, before rebounding slightly over the remainder of the sample. However, it stays well below its initial value and ends in 2022 at just under 80. The Japan line (dotted thin red) is flat over most of the sample period before declining slightly in 2022 to 90. The EU line (dotted medium purple) changes direction frequently, but ends up reaching a minimum of 90 in 2021 and a maximum of 110 in 2022. The Australia and New Zealand line (dashed medium dark gold) increases in 2019 to 110 (which is also its value in 2020) before dropping back down to a little bit below 100. The rest of world line (solid thin black) stays close to 100 throughout the sample period.
Note: The left panel displays the annual share of imports from China, for selected countries, with each country's Chinese import share indexed to be 100 in 2017. The level of import shares from China across countries varies substantially. The share of imports from China in 2016 (2022) was 23% (26%) for Australia and New Zealand, 8% (10%) for the European Union, 26% (21%) for Japan, 21% (17%) for the U.S., and 19% (19%) for the rest of the world. The share of imports from the U.S. (right panel) in 2016 (2022) was 11% (10%) for Australia and New Zealand, 9% (7%) for China, 6% (6%) for the European Union, 11% (10%) for Japan, and 13% (13%) for the rest of the world. Values are rounded to the nearest percent. When aggregating countries into the Rest of World group for this figure, we include a country only if it has reported imports for every year in the sample, in order to maintain a consistent baseline. EU trade data exclude Gibraltar.
Source: UN Comtrade.
Figure 2. Indexed Share of Imports from China, by ATP Status
This figure shows annual indexed shares of imports from China for three groups (the U.S., Japan, and the rest of the world), subset by ATP. The two U.S. lines (ATP, solid thick blue; non-ATP, dashed thick blue) show that U.S. imports from China have decreased since 2018. Furthermore, imports of ATPs have declined much more, reaching a low of about 70. The two Japan lines (ATP, solid thin red; non-ATP, dashed thin red) show that imports from China haven’t changed much, increasing slightly above 100 in 2020 and decreasing to about 90 in 2022. Importantly, the ATP and non-ATP lines track each other closely throughout the sample. The two ROW lines (ATP, solid medium black; non-ATP, dashed medium black) increase slightly over the sample period, peaking at about 110 (2020 for non-ATPs, 2021 for ATPs). Both lines stay relatively close to each other (similarly to Japan).
Note: Figure displays the share of imports from China for ATP and non-ATP products, indexed to be 100 in 2017, for selected countries.
Source: UN Comtrade.
Figure 3. Indexed Share of U.S. Imports from China, by ATP and Tariff Status
This figure shows annual indexed shares of U.S. imports from China, indexed to 100 in 2017, over the period 2016 to 2022, inclusive. Imports are partitioned into four categories, depending on whether the good in question was ever subject to a tariff as part of the U.S.-China trade war, and whether the good in question is an ATP. The tariff and ATP line (solid thick green) drops most steeply, reaching a low of 30 in 2022. The tariff and non-ATP line (dashed thick green) also drops, but not as steeply, reaching a level of 80 in 2022. The non-tariff and ATP line (solid thin brown) changes direction a few times but ends up at about 80 as well in 2022. Finally, the non-tariff and non-ATP line (dashed thin brown) increases slightly through 2021 before dipping back below 100 in 2022.
Note: Figure displays the share of U.S. imports from China, indexed to be 100 in 2017, for four categories of goods based on whether they are ATPs and whether they were subject to additional tariffs on U.S. imports from China since 2018.
Source: USITC.
Figure 4. Rauch Classification of HS Codes
This bar chart splits up total 2017 U.S. imports into several categories. The far left bar shows the share of imports of ATPs belonging to each of the three categories introduced by Rauch (1999), using the conservative classification scheme. Over 80% of trade belongs to the differentiated category, while the remainder is in the reference category. The second bar from the left shows the distribution for non-ATPs; about 70% is in the differentiated category, a bit over 10% is in the reference category, and a little less than 20% is in the homogeneous category. Next, the two bars on the right use the liberal classification scheme. The conclusions drawn from the left two bars are even more extreme in this version. For ATPs, over 90% of trade is in the differentiated category, and the remaining sliver is in the reference category. For non-ATPs, the proportions are largely similar to the second bar from the left, though the homogeneous category is slightly smaller and the differentiated category is slightly larger.
Note: Each bar shows, for a particular subset of 2017 HS codes, the share of 2017 U.S. imports belonging to each of the three Rauch categories. The left two bars use the conservative (con.) strategy, and partition the set of HS codes into ATPs and non-ATPs. The right two bars use the liberal (lib.) strategy and similarly partition HS codes into ATPs and non-ATPs. The key identifies bars in order from top to bottom.
Source: USITC.