More ammunition for the U.S. in its aborning trade war with China, via Bloomberg:
The trade gap, released by the customs bureau today, widened by 87 percent from a year earlier after exporters rushed to beat cuts in export tax rebates. A Bloomberg News survey of 15 economists had a median estimate of $23.8 billion.
More than half of the surplus was with the U.S., where lawmakers last month introduced legislation to punish nations that use their currencies to gain an unfair advantage. Today’s figures may heighten tensions already exacerbated by scares over Chinese exports from contaminated seafood to defective tires. [Full Text]
