China's Consumers Went Quiet — And That's How Trade Wars Get Started
China's economy just grew at its weakest pace since 2022, and the reason matters more than the number: Chinese consumers aren't spending, even as the country's AI-fueled export machine runs hot. When the world's second-largest economy can't generate demand at home, it has one lever left — sell harder abroad. That's a recipe for the next round of global trade fights, and the US is squarely in the blast radius.
Bottom Line
This isn't just a slow quarter for China — it's confirmation that Beijing's long-promised consumer economy still isn't materializing, leaving exports as its only working growth engine. An export-dependent China and a protection-minded West are on a collision course, and the AI boom is accelerating both sides toward it. Signal, not noise: this is a trend years in the making, now getting harder to ignore.