As chaotic tariff negotiations disrupt global supply chains and make planning more difficult, manufacturers in China are racing to adapt.

How, then, to explain the resilience of China’s exports in the turmoil of the global trade war? Some companies have been “front-loading”, or shipping extra goods to America, on fears that the truce will not hold and levies will increase further later.

China accounted for 5.89% of all U.S. trade in May, its lowest percentage in decades. Trump’s tariffs or trade trickery? It’s hard to dispute it’s a remarkable shift.