{"id":160265,"date":"2025-08-20T05:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160265\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T05:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:11:15","slug":"japans-july-exports-drop-by-2-6-steepest-plunge-in-over-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160265\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s July exports drop by 2.6%, steepest plunge in over four years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owngarden | Moment | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Japan’s exports plunged 2.6% in July from a year earlier, their steepest drop since February 2021, as shipments to its two largest markets \u2014 the United States and China \u2014 declined.<\/p>\n

The fall was sharper than the 2.1% contraction forecast in a Reuters poll and compared with a 0.5% decline in June.<\/p>\n

Imports to the world’s fourth-largest economy sank 7.5%, less than the 10.4% fall expected.<\/p>\n

Exports to the U.S. also continued to fall, dropping 10.1% in July and slightly softer than June’s decline of 11.4%. The U.S. is the largest market for Japanese exports.<\/p>\n

Shipments to mainland China \u2014 Japan’s second largest export market \u2014 declined 3.5% compared to the same month last year, but shipments to Hong Kong spiked 17.7%.<\/p>\n

The Nikkei 225<\/a> declined 0.9% after the release, while the yen<\/a> eased to 147.79 per dollar.<\/p>\n

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon\"hide<\/p>\n

The weak trade data came after Japan’s economy grew stronger than expected in the second quarter, with GDP rising 0.3% from the previous quarter and 1.2% from a year earlier, as net exports drove growth.<\/p>\n

Hirofumi Suzuki, Chief FX Strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, told CNBC after the GDP release that while exports have been volatile, there was a higher level of automobile shipments in April to June.<\/p>\n

He attributed the increase to a catch-up in shipments after production recovered from an accident at an automobile parts manufacturer in March.<\/p>\n

While Suzuki did not name the company, Reuters reported that there was an\u00a0explosion on March 7<\/a>\u00a0at a plant in central Japan that supplies auto parts to the world’s largest carmaker, Toyota<\/a> Motor.<\/p>\n

Tariffs on automobiles were cut from 25% to 15% as part of Japan’s trade deal. Autos are one of Japan’s largest exports, and make up its largest export to the U.S. in 2024.<\/p>\n

The value of auto exports \u2014 which includes cars, buses and trucks \u2014 to the U.S. plunged 28.4% year over year in July, a steeper fall compared to the 26.7% decline in June.<\/p>\n

Japan reached a deal with Washington on July 22 that saw its so-called “reciprocal tariff” lowered to 15%<\/a> from the 25% threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier that month.<\/p>\n

While the effects of the 15% tariffs will not show up until the August data, analysts have warned about their impact on the Japanese economy.<\/p>\n

Senior economist Masato Koike at Sompo Institute Plus said in an Aug 14 note that there was a possibility that Japan could enter a recession, depending on the magnitude of the impact of tariffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owngarden | Moment | Getty Images Japan’s exports plunged 2.6% in July from a year earlier, their steepest…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8000,7998,64,81,170,17787,37750,7997,17989,130,67,132,68,7993],"class_list":{"0":"post-160265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-asia-economy","9":"tag-breaking-news-asia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-business-news","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-japan-government","14":"tag-japanese-yen","15":"tag-nikkei-225-index","16":"tag-toyota-motor-corp","17":"tag-trade","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usd-jpy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115059378329356803","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}