How Covid Upended Trade Between Two Economic Giants
Data shows an extraordinary change in demand for goods between the US and China.
Supply and demand.
Photographer: Lionel Ng/BloombergAs millions died and countless more lives were overturned, the very structure of global commerce changed under the weight of Covid-19. Entirely new products became among the most shipped across the Pacific Ocean, while mainstays of the China-US economic relationship withered amid falling demand and frozen passenger travel.
Not all of the changes can be attributed to the spread of Covid — declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization three years ago this month — with Washington and Beijing already caught in an increasingly tense technology Cold War. Yet the numbers show clear patterns that correlate to a shift in demand and limitations caused by virus-related lockdowns and supply-chain interruptions.