Freight shipments reportedly dropped by over 5 percent during the month of June and analysts say orders are down across the board because of Trump's trade war.
June was the seventh month in a row that shipments were down and it may be a sign that the economy is contracting.
From USA Today:
Truck, rail and air freight volumes fell 5.3% in June from the same period a year ago, the seventh straight annual decline, according to the closely watched Cass Freight Index. That followed a 6% drop in May.
“There is growing evidence from freight flows that the economy is beginning to contract,” Donald Broughton, managing partner of Broughton Capital and author of the Cass report, wrote in the latest edition last week.
Broughton largely blames the drop on the global economic slowdown and U.S. trade war with China, which have dampened U.S. imports and exports and led to fewer deliveries of chemicals, consumer products and other goods to seaports and airports. The trade fight also has crimped business confidence and investment, spurring fewer orders for computers, factory equipment and other long-lasting products.
The Commerce Department will release their initial measure of GDP during the second quarter of the year tomorrow and economists predict that the economy grew by less than 2 percent.
If that is the case, it would bring us closer in line to the rest of the world as global economic growth slows. Manufacturing output is already in recessionary territory in Germany, South Korea, and China and it will likely catch up to us at some point even if that point is not tomorrow.
With Trump's trade war with China expected to last at least another six months by the White House's own estimates, it's difficult to see any reason why predictions that growth will slow during the second half of the year won't prove to be true.
The economy has defied expectations to some degree over the past seven months, but sometimes I get the impression that we're just dancing around the chairs until the music stops.
Republicans say you should vote for them because their policies are best for business, but they eventually destroy business and the Trump regime could ultimately prove to be entirely ordinary in that regard.