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Speaker 2: Alex Steal here alongside Paul swe Need this Bloomberg Intelligence Radio.
Speaker 2: You can check us out on YouTube as well, just
Speaker 2: go to YouTube dot com. One story that broke a
Speaker 2: couple hours ago is Amazon canceling orders for multiple products
Speaker 2: made in China and other Asian countries, thinking things like
Speaker 2: beach chairs, scooters, air conditioners and things like that. Joining
Speaker 2: us now is the reporter who broke that story. Spencer
Speaker 2: Soper is Bloomberg News Technology and e commerce reporter. How
Speaker 2: does how does all of this work? For Amazon? So
Speaker 2: they place orders how many months in advance? And then
Speaker 2: what's the ripple effect here?
Speaker 3: That's a that's a great question. And a lot of
Speaker 3: this stuff, you know, the kind of have like a
Speaker 3: target of how much they'll need and then they'll place
Speaker 3: orders maybe monthly or that sort of thing. And so
Speaker 3: these cancelations affect what are called direct import orders. This
Speaker 3: is where Amazon tells vendors, hey, look, you're making this
Speaker 3: stuff in China or some other country in Asia. We
Speaker 3: can actually transport it to the US cheaper than you
Speaker 3: can because we do so much volume. Why don't you
Speaker 3: let us just buy it from you in the source country,
Speaker 3: will import it, We'll pay the tariffs and pass those
Speaker 3: savings onto customers. That makes a lot of sense previously,
Speaker 3: but now with tariffs in the mix, it gives Amazon
Speaker 3: a lot of exposure to tariffs, and that's why they've
Speaker 3: they've abruptly canceled a bunch of these types of orders.
Speaker 4: All right, so Amazon captured, canceleles the order. Presumably the
Speaker 4: vendors left with in your story, five hundred thousand beach chairs,
Speaker 4: What does that vendor do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: You scramble.
Speaker 3: So a lot of this can basically just reset negotiation.
Speaker 3: I mean, first, let's say a lot of these purchase
Speaker 3: orders should be binding. But but these these folks don't
Speaker 3: want to get tied up in court with Amazon. So
Speaker 3: Amazon is kind of flexing its muscle a little bit here,
Speaker 3: and then you know, they can renegotiate with Amazon on
Speaker 3: different terms to still sell them through Amazon, but obviously
Speaker 3: share some of the pain of these tariffs, and then
Speaker 3: other options are going to other marketplaces, and this is
Speaker 3: an opportunity for folks like TikTok Shop, Walmart, UH team
Speaker 3: move to stand out as alternatives. So they do have
Speaker 3: some options, but Amazon's still like the main, the main
Speaker 3: show in town when it comes to US online sales.
Speaker 2: Was this move unusual or expected?
Speaker 3: Very unusual and definitely unexpected? Most of these folks said
Speaker 3: they were, you know, completely caught off guard by it.
Speaker 3: You know, like like I said, what the beach chair
Speaker 3: vendor has been selling for more than a decade on
Speaker 3: Amazon and actually had the stuff made. So it's not
Speaker 3: like they said, hey, this this order way out. Let's
Speaker 3: cancer that this is stuff that he's already you know,
Speaker 3: had had a factory make and and is on the
Speaker 3: hook to pay for so with with with no communication
Speaker 3: or real explanation. So this is definitely showing how these
Speaker 3: uh these tariffs are are, you know, basically disrupting a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of relationships and and forcing h
Speaker 3: partners to negotiate with one another.
Speaker 4: Have we heard anything from Walmart about kind of how
Speaker 4: they plan to navigate these tariffs?
Speaker 3: I I haven't spoken specifically to Walmart. But a lot
Speaker 3: of these companies are just in the same game. You figure,
Speaker 3: you figure Walmart has an advantage of selling predominantly grocery
Speaker 3: and so if there is a pullback, you know, people
Speaker 3: still need groceries, so so they'll still do well there.
Speaker 3: But then, you know, in terms of like these large
Speaker 3: diversified retailers like Amazon and Walmart, you're you're just likely
Speaker 3: to see shift in a mix of products like more consumables,
Speaker 3: more everyday needs that peopleeople need in their daily lives,
Speaker 3: and less of this kind of discretionary stuff like the
Speaker 3: beach chairs we mentioned, or scooters or that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: How many more levers like this does can Amazon pull?
Speaker 3: Amazon's has many levers and knobs, but so do its partners, right,
Speaker 3: so this is kind of a gamble. So if Amazon's
Speaker 3: pulling back on its orders, you know, then that said that,
Speaker 3: the knock on effect of that is some of these
Speaker 3: folks that sell on Amazon and rely on Amazon for
Speaker 3: sales might have to pull back on ad spend. You know.
Speaker 3: So it's you know, the Amazon can turn one now,
Speaker 3: but then someone else turns another. It's like popcorn popping
Speaker 3: in a kettle.
Speaker 4: What if we heard Spencer from some of the Chinese
Speaker 4: players like Ali Baba, like Timu, how are they planning
Speaker 4: on navigating the new environment.
Speaker 3: I haven't heard much from Ali Baba. And then on
Speaker 3: Timu has basically been kind of anticipating a lot of this.
Speaker 3: A bigger issue for them was this deminimous loophole and
Speaker 3: they've been kind of forward deploying more inventory into the US.
Speaker 3: So that was another thing, is folks just trying to
Speaker 3: get ahead of this and get get inventory into the
Speaker 3: US before these tariffs take effect. And then another option
Speaker 3: for for folks like Timo or Amazon or any vendor
Speaker 3: selling anything is just looking for countries not affected by
Speaker 3: these tariffs, and so that this is making places like Canada, Australia,
Speaker 3: other other markets much more desirable, especially if you've got
Speaker 3: to unload inventory and want to want to avoid these tariffs.
Speaker 2: Does any of this yet? Did you have a sense
Speaker 2: just in your reporting how demand is holding up at all?
Speaker 2: Like we talked a lot about the supplier side, et cetera,
Speaker 2: But are we seeing sort of stockpiling ahead of the
Speaker 2: tariffs in terms of consumer behavior?
Speaker 3: That's that's the million dollar question right now. And there's
Speaker 3: there's definitely a lot of cross currents. And that's the fear,
Speaker 3: right is like, you know, a lot of a lot
Speaker 3: of companies analysts everything they can get real time data
Speaker 3: from sources that track like credit card transit actions and stuff.
Speaker 3: And so that's a big concern right now. Is there
Speaker 3: like almost like a false flag that the consumer's safe
Speaker 3: if in reality they are just like stockpiling on things
Speaker 3: getting ahead of the tariffs and then and then demand's
Speaker 3: going to drop off a cliff in several weeks, you know.
Speaker 3: So that's something that people are actively monitoring and scratching
Speaker 3: their heads about right now.
Speaker 4: All right, Spencer, thank you so much. We appreciate that. Spencer, Sooper,
Speaker 4: Bloomberg News Technology and e Commerce reporter.
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Speaker 2: Let's take a broader look now at the relationship of
Speaker 2: US and China. It's not good. What's the off ramp
Speaker 2: at this point? Joining us now is Leland Miller. He
Speaker 2: is a CEO of the China, beij book Leland. You
Speaker 2: are deep into the China, I mean China US trade relations, etc.
Speaker 2: What levers does China have to pull to help support
Speaker 2: its economy in the middle of a trade war.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, markets have been expecting there to be
Speaker 5: some sort of giant stimulus response for years, and they
Speaker 5: were always disappointed because it wasn't in Chijiping's interest to
Speaker 5: sort of reduce the economy after they've gone through maybe
Speaker 5: not deleveraging, but certainly a tightening of credit to areas
Speaker 5: of the economy outside of the priorities like advanced manufacturing,
Speaker 5: et cetera. We're entering a very new era here, and
Speaker 5: so depending on how severe geopolitics and the trade wars
Speaker 5: get going forward, they're going to start looking at these
Speaker 5: levers more seriously. Obviously, one of the big one is
Speaker 5: fiscal spending. They don't want to do a Bazuka like
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight, and they've already done a lot
Speaker 5: of monetary easing over the course of the past couple
Speaker 5: of years, so there's not that much oomp there. But
Speaker 5: there is spending they can certainly do. And in our
Speaker 5: latest data, we have actually seen our proxy for infrastructure
Speaker 5: structure spending, uh start expanding, it go up by transportation.
Speaker 5: Construction firms are borrowing more, they're investing more, They're hiring more.
Speaker 5: So they are they are readying the AMMO gun in
Speaker 5: case they need to use it. But I think they're
Speaker 5: trying to figure out whether this is going to be
Speaker 5: a short term problem or whether this is the new norm.
Speaker 6: So Leland, nobody knows this better than you. But where
Speaker 6: is a capacity for China and the willingness for China
Speaker 6: to really go toe to toe with President Trump in
Speaker 6: the US on these tariffs.
Speaker 4: What is their capacity there?
Speaker 5: Do you think? Well, their capacity and their willingness are
Speaker 5: two different things. I think their willingness is very high.
Speaker 5: I think we're already seeing a you know, there was
Speaker 5: a signaling before it happened, and then now that it's happened,
Speaker 5: you see there was a you know, the message was always,
Speaker 5: if you do something to us, we're gonna respond. You
Speaker 5: do something else to us, again, we're gonna respond. Now,
Speaker 5: the problem here is that China doesn't have the capacity
Speaker 5: to go one on one in the trade field with
Speaker 5: the United States, simply because the United States is a
Speaker 5: massive importer and China is a very weak importer by comparison,
Speaker 5: So if you just talking about trade, the US has
Speaker 5: much more leverage and can put much more pain on China.
Speaker 5: This is why, once you get to a certain point,
Speaker 5: and to the extent that Beijing is willing to risk
Speaker 5: an escalation, you're going to see things expand outside the
Speaker 5: purely trade realm. It's not going to be just a
Speaker 5: conversation about tariffs. Already we're moving outside of it, but
Speaker 5: you can expand it more dramatically to other areas and
Speaker 5: even punishing US firms on the ground in China.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, we already heard the headline that China's
Speaker 2: you know, telling students that want to study in the US,
Speaker 2: like think twice, for example, before you do that. In
Speaker 2: terms of levers that can pull, I know you mentioned
Speaker 2: helping domestic capacity and sort of pumping money into the
Speaker 2: system for consumers might not be the best. But in
Speaker 2: terms of the un evaluation, for example, how orderly can
Speaker 2: China keep that?
Speaker 5: I think they can keep it pretty orderly because they
Speaker 5: want to keep it orderly. You know, it seems like
Speaker 5: every time there's any kind of geopolitical tension to the
Speaker 5: US and China, any trade tension, there's anything going on
Speaker 5: in terms of just a weak Chinese economy. There's people
Speaker 5: screaming to this guy the yuan devalue it to value it.
Speaker 5: They really don't want to do this. It's not that
Speaker 5: it's not a tool in the in the box to use,
Speaker 5: but it's for break the glass emergencies. It doesn't mean
Speaker 5: they're not going to blow off steam against the USD.
Speaker 5: It doesn't mean they're not gonna, you know, have a
Speaker 5: signaling purpose from just from moving it incrementally. But they
Speaker 5: really don't want to do one of these one off devaluations.
Speaker 5: It would be a massive escalation. It would be seen
Speaker 5: very poorly, not just the United States and around the world.
Speaker 5: But you're also you're also sitting in a situation where
Speaker 5: you are going to you're going to create a lot
Speaker 5: of stress inside the Chinese economy. You're going to put
Speaker 5: pressure on having more capital outflows, You're trying to increase consumption.
Speaker 5: By weakening the yu want you're gonna hurt consumption even further.
Speaker 5: So this is not just some piece of a trade
Speaker 5: artillery that they can use willy nilly to go there
Speaker 5: in a big way. They need to really have a
Speaker 5: substantial escalation.
Speaker 4: Hey Leland, does chind of view this US nationalism from
Speaker 4: President trumpet administration, from a global trade, from a global
Speaker 4: mill military political as a real opportunity to expand its influence?
Speaker 4: Did they view this as a once in a lifetime
Speaker 4: opportunity to do that.
Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of voices in China. I
Speaker 5: think that they don't like some of what's happening. I
Speaker 5: think other things they see as an opportunity. Certainly, if
Speaker 5: US allies and partner relationships are breaking down, either in
Speaker 5: the region or around the world, they'd love to take
Speaker 5: advantage of that, and not necessarily by replacing the US,
Speaker 5: by just simply just saying stop helping the US, stop
Speaker 5: stop buying into what they're doing. So so there are
Speaker 5: opportunities in here if it's played wrong by the US government.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think that we're in a We're
Speaker 5: in such a dramatic place differently from you know where
Speaker 5: we were a few months ago. They're trying to digest this,
Speaker 5: just like the rest of us.
Speaker 2: Will this move China to make connections and trade deals
Speaker 2: and more economic ties with the rest of the world,
Speaker 2: And is the rest of the world open to that?
Speaker 5: China would love lots of trade deals, but China wants
Speaker 5: them on their terms, and what they want to be
Speaker 5: able to do is not import on other countries' exports,
Speaker 5: and they want to just shove their exports down everybody
Speaker 5: else's throat. So to the extent that they can strong
Speaker 5: arm countries or there's unique advantages to having some sort
Speaker 5: of bilatter relationship, then you know, maybe these proceed. But
Speaker 5: keep in mind, to the extent the US shuts itself
Speaker 5: off from Chinese goods, we import a lot of Chinese
Speaker 5: goods and have for a long long time, then they're
Speaker 5: going to have to send these goods somewhere else. So
Speaker 5: in addition to all the overcapacity problems you already have,
Speaker 5: you have simply a need to replace the demand for
Speaker 5: Chinese exports elsewhere. They're going to be flooding Southeast Asia,
Speaker 5: they're going to be flooding Europe, They're going to be
Speaker 5: flooding South America. So this is going to have to
Speaker 5: demand a policy response from all these other countries. And
Speaker 5: the question is, you know, do you really want to
Speaker 5: do a trade deal with the Chinese if you're not
Speaker 5: getting anything back in return.
Speaker 4: Leland Millo, thank you so much. We appreciate your time.
Speaker 4: As always. One of our go to voices and all
Speaker 4: things China, all things Chinese Economy, Leland Miller, CEO at
Speaker 4: the China Facebook. One of the things we'd like about
Speaker 4: chatting with Leland because at the Beige Book they have
Speaker 4: really unique data. They have boots on the ground they
Speaker 4: get They don't rely upon the government data because that
Speaker 4: historically has been not quite reliable. So again they have
Speaker 4: their own data sets there that they rely upon to
Speaker 4: give them a sense of ware the Chinese economy.
Speaker 3: ASTs.
Speaker 4: We find out from Leland that he's usually ahead of
Speaker 4: this stuff, so I appreciate getting his time.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Coarclay, and Android
Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4: Joining us in studio, How about that, Christina Hooper, Chief
Speaker 4: Global market strategist at Invesco. We usually do the Zoom thing,
Speaker 4: but we've got her in our studio here in NewYork.
Speaker 4: That's great, Christina, You've got perspective, You've been around. This
Speaker 4: isn't your first Rodeo, What do you make of the
Speaker 4: last three, four, five, six trading days.
Speaker 7: Well, this is an environment in which there is just
Speaker 7: a super high level of uncertainty and that is causing
Speaker 7: all kinds of wild swings in all different corners of
Speaker 7: the market. And I think this is not that dissimilar
Speaker 7: to what we saw in the early days of COVID.
Speaker 7: Now that was a time when there was just an
Speaker 7: incredible amount of uncertainty and markets reacted with an enormous
Speaker 7: amount of fear, wild swings. And the other similarity is
Speaker 7: that it's all about policy. That it's going to the
Speaker 7: outcome of this crisis will be dictated by policy, and
Speaker 7: so in some ways that's helpful because you can you
Speaker 7: can do a scenario map and ask yourself, you know,
Speaker 7: if this effex happens, we think, why will happen? But
Speaker 7: it is. It is a very very unusual environment, just
Speaker 7: punctuated by just an incredibly high level of uncertainty.
Speaker 2: Speaking of that, Amazon canceling orders that affect multiple products
Speaker 2: and vendors after China tear effs. They're citing trade disputes
Speaker 2: as risk factor and this coming out in the annual report.
Speaker 2: The difference and obviously is that this is a self
Speaker 2: inflicted policy. This is not what happened in COVID and
Speaker 2: we shut down and then we had to help to
Speaker 2: go specifically to the treasury market. Are you seeing are
Speaker 2: you hearing? Are you worried about the treasury market not
Speaker 2: functioning properly like we saw back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: So I certainly think that's a concern. Right now, I
Speaker 7: don't think we're seeing that, but we do know that,
Speaker 7: you know, our trading partners know some of our big vulnerabilities,
Speaker 7: right and one of them is that we spend an
Speaker 7: awful lot servicing our debt, and so one way to
Speaker 7: punish us would be to sell US treasuries. So I
Speaker 7: certainly think we you know, we should, We are aware
Speaker 7: of the vulnerabilities, and we would be following it closely
Speaker 7: at Investigo.
Speaker 4: What is your I guess economic forecast? Do you have
Speaker 4: a recession in your forecast?
Speaker 7: My base case is that if we see terroriffs remain
Speaker 7: at these relatively high levels, we're more than fifty percent
Speaker 7: probability of going into a recession this year. It doesn't
Speaker 7: mean that it's going to be a deep recession, but
Speaker 7: I think that certainly the odds are in favor of
Speaker 7: recession if we see tariffs remain at relatively high levels.
Speaker 7: But if we were to see a de escalation, we
Speaker 7: could easily see a risk on environment with US assets benefiting.
Speaker 7: So it is very much in the hands of policymakers.
Speaker 2: And then to that point, you just look at delta right,
Speaker 2: pulling guidance. If a company pulls guidance, you would assume
Speaker 2: the stock would sell off and that would be really
Speaker 2: bad news. And the stock is up. It's like it's
Speaker 2: not going to take much to maybe move the needle.
Speaker 2: Where is safety though?
Speaker 4: Now? As you wait?
Speaker 7: So safety clearly is in gold, and that's what many
Speaker 7: investors are articulating through their purchases. But there is also safety,
Speaker 7: of course in Japanese yen, in the Swiss frank some
Speaker 7: of the traditional safe haven asset classes x US. I
Speaker 7: don't know if there's as much safety in treasuries or
Speaker 7: the usd Wow.
Speaker 4: That's a statement. International rest of world stock markets been
Speaker 4: out performing the US pretty well, and that doesn't happen
Speaker 4: very often. Is that a trade? Is that a longer
Speaker 4: term trend? Do you think is our international markets may
Speaker 4: be more attractive from an equity perspective.
Speaker 7: Well, certainly from evaluation perspective, and for some markets from
Speaker 7: a dividend yield perspective, they are more attractive. And you
Speaker 7: have to recognize a very significant catalyst, which is the
Speaker 7: potential for fiscal stimulus material fiscal stimulilus coming from Europe
Speaker 7: and from China, and I think that can be a
Speaker 7: countervailing force to the headwinds that come from these.
Speaker 2: Terror counterbailing force. Could that also come in the US
Speaker 2: in the form of tax cuts. Would that be enough?
Speaker 7: That's a good question. I'd have to see exactly what
Speaker 7: those tax cuts look like, because keep in mind that
Speaker 7: it's lower income households that are going to be hit
Speaker 7: the hardest by these tear wars. Of course, all consumers
Speaker 7: will be hit to the extent that the wealth effect
Speaker 7: is impacted, but I think lower income households the burden
Speaker 7: is higher for tariffs. So what will the tax cuts
Speaker 7: look like and will it benefit lower income households? So
Speaker 7: when I know that, then I can answer that question.
Speaker 4: Another headline China issues warning for students studying in the US.
Speaker 4: So there you go, ripple effect. I guess you'd call it, yeah,
Speaker 4: fixed income. What's the play here? Christina in fixed income
Speaker 4: for you guys.
Speaker 7: So I think there's certainly potential in a number of areas. Again,
Speaker 7: a lot of it has to do with one's time horizon,
Speaker 7: but certainly floating rate. I don't see the Fed cutting
Speaker 7: rates anytime soon. I know four cuts are priced in.
Speaker 7: It's hard to believe that's going to happen in this
Speaker 7: environment where we're seeing market based inflation expectations go up
Speaker 7: and where we're seeing consumer based inflation expectations go up.
Speaker 2: Aside from I guess from where you sit, what would
Speaker 2: certainty look like? Because to some extent we know what
Speaker 2: stuff is like, we know what tariffs are, we know
Speaker 2: that we don't know necessarily what all the response will be.
Speaker 2: So what would it take for you, as someone who'd
Speaker 2: been in the market for a long time to feel confident?
Speaker 7: So I hearkened back to the first Trump administration, definitely
Speaker 7: harken and how that played out. Twenty eighteen was a
Speaker 7: really difficult year. The S and P five hundred was down,
Speaker 7: we saw some foreign markets down much more, but just
Speaker 7: a smodest alleviation in tariffs helped and gave markets confidence.
Speaker 7: So something like that I think is enough in this environment.
Speaker 7: There's really a bias towards optimism, especially in the equity market.
Speaker 7: So there's hope. Even if we were to get some
Speaker 7: kind of reduction, some negotiation, some deals negotiated with some countries,
Speaker 7: I think that could be helpful. That doesn't give us
Speaker 7: the extreme certainty that I think we crave, but it's enough.
Speaker 4: Christina, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Christina Hooper,
Speaker 4: Global Chief Global Market Strategist for Invesco joining us live
Speaker 4: here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio, which is a
Speaker 4: good thing.
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