President Donald Trump’s aggressive moves to remake the U.S. economy during the first three months of his second term are having a huge impact — and it will probably prove to be a very negative one when the report card for the first quarter is handed out.

China’s economy showed its first big signs of damage from the trade war, as steep U.S. tariffs pummeled export orders and production at the country’s factories. A gauge of new export orders fell in April to its lowest reading since Covid-19 was ravaging the country in 2022,

Since China first joined the World Trade Organisation a quarter century ago, it has developed a particularly Darwinian version of capitalism, in which companies must tolerate unending rounds of brutal price competition,