In January 2017, the U.S. imported nearly $41.4 billion worth of product from China, which dropped to nearly $32.8 billion in February 2017. This marked a record month-to-month decline of just over $8.6 billion worth of imports from China.
In percentage terms however, this month to month change only ranks seventh among the biggest month over month declines in goods imported to the U.S. from China since January 1985.
This year’s New Year/Spring Festival in China took place from 28 January 2017 through 2 February 2017: China’s port facility workers who load goods onto U.S.-bound cargo ships were on holiday for the entire week, so the decline in imports is probably seasonal.
Combined with the two-to-three weeks that it takes America-bound goods to be exported from China’s ports to their primary destination of U.S. west coast ports, February 2017 would have seen the amount of Chinese imports being unloaded in U.S. ports reduced by one week’s worth of Chinese cargo ship traffic.