핵심요약

• 중국으로부터의 수입은 2024년 6월 대비 40% 감소했습니다.
• 중국산 상품 670억 달러가 2025년에 멕시코, 인도, 베트남을 통해 환적되었습니다.
• '위대한 환적 사기(The Great Transhipment Scam)'는 미국 제조업 지역의 일자리를 감소시킵니다.
• 미국은 모든 선하증권과 운송 명세서를 스캔하는 AI 기반 국경 '탐정' 도구를 개발하고 있습니다.

도입

본 기사는 미·중 무역 갈등 속에서 미국이 중국에 대해 실질적인 무역 우위를 확보하지 못했음을 지적하며, 공급망의 숨겨진 취약점과 불법 환적(Transshipment) 문제를 심층적으로 다룹니다. 이는 단순한 관세 전쟁을 넘어, 글로벌 제조 공급망 내에서 발생하는 물류의 투명성과 노동 환경에 대한 근본적인 질문을 던진다는 점에서 투자자들에게 중요한 시사점을 제공합니다.

본문 1: 공급망 리스크와 환적의 실체

중국산 수입이 40% 감소했다는 사실은 무역 분쟁이 일정 부분 효과를 거두었음을 보여주지만, 이는 중국의 총 수입액 감소만을 의미할 뿐, 실제 상품의 흐름과 가치 사슬의 변화를 완전히 반영하지 못합니다. 핵심은 $67bn의 상품이 멕시코, 인도, 베트남 등으로 우회 운송되는 환적(Transshipment) 경로에 있습니다. 이는 중국에서 생산된 부품이나 자재가 관세 회피나 규제 우회를 목적으로 제3국을 경유하여 미국 시장에 유입되는 현상을 의미합니다. 이러한 환적 과정은 공식적인 무역 통계를 왜곡하며, 최종적으로 미국 내 제조 커뮤니티(밀워키, 클리블랜드, 툴레도 등)의 일자리와 생산 기반을 잠식하는 결과를 초래합니다. 즉, 무역 정책의 변화에도 불구하고 물리적인 공급망의 비효율성과 불법적 흐름은 여전히 존재한다는 점이 핵심입니다.

본문 2: 제조 기반의 취약성과 기술적 대응

환적 사기는 단순한 물류 문제를 넘어, 미국 내 제조업의 고용 안정성과 직결되는 구조적 취약점을 드러냅니다. 기사는 이러한 불법적인 흐름이 미국 내 제조 커뮤니티에 미치는 부정적 영향을 강조하며, 이는 단순한 경제 지표를 넘어 사회적, 지정학적 안정성 문제로 확장됩니다. 이러한 위험에 대응하기 위해 미국 정부는 새로운 기술적 솔루션을 도입하고 있습니다. 바로 AI 기반의 국경 '탐정' 도구입니다. 이 도구는 선하증권과 운송 명세서를 실시간으로 스캔하여 불법적인 경로를 감지하고 책임을 추적함으로써, 공급망 내의 투명성을 강제하고 불법 행위에 대한 억제력을 높이는 데 중점을 둡니다. 이는 미래의 무역 환경에서 데이터와 기술이 어떻게 규제와 감시의 도구로 활용될 수 있는지 보여주는 선례가 될 것입니다.

본문 3: 장기적인 패러다임 변화의 전망

AI 기반 국경 감시 기술의 도입은 미래의 국제 무역 환경에 중대한 변화를 예고합니다. 과거에는 물리적인 검사와 관세 부과에 의존했다면, 이제는 데이터 분석과 인공지능을 통해 비물리적인 흐름까지 감시하고 규제하는 패러다임으로 전환되고 있습니다. 이러한 기술적 접근은 환적 사기와 같은 비공식적인 무역 행위를 통제하는 데 있어 강력한 도구가 될 수 있으며, 이는 글로벌 공급망 관리의 표준을 재정립할 가능성이 높습니다. 장기적으로 볼 때, 국가 간의 무역 관계는 단순한 상품 교환을 넘어, 데이터 기반의 투명하고 안전한 흐름을 보장하는 방향으로 진화할 것으로 전망됩니다.

결론

결론적으로, 미국이 중국에 대해 취한 조치에도 불구하고, 실제 상품의 흐름과 제조 기반의 취약점은 여전히 복잡하고 불투명한 공급망 문제에 직면해 있습니다. 향후 투자 관점에서 볼 때, 물리적 무역 정책뿐만 아니라, AI와 같은 기술을 활용한 공급망 투명성 확보 노력이 장기적인 경제 안정성과 제조 경쟁력에 미치는 영향을 면밀히 관찰할 필요가 있습니다. 특히, 기술 기반의 규제 환경 변화가 글로벌 무역 흐름에 미치는 파급 효과에 주목해야 할 것입니다.

---

원문 링크: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMigAFBVV95cUxPSW0yU3RqTkNxcmFnT1B5TWJEVDRXcklzaGVPUlpraWxlWUhnTTBmQlhXaENuRHJnZnVna09jOU0yc1FldXNRVzZzM0t4N25raldRVVBSUVN6QjhodGlpRW1keU5QY01xTzJCbldVM0ZjRlpoVFpUV3dLQW9yZVA5MQ?oc=5

Is the US actually too chicken to take on China for trade? - The Guardian

A weak yuan guarantees Beijing massive trade surplus even as the White House tries tamp down on Chinese imports

Since China offered a truce in the trade war last October following its threat to deprive the United States of rare-earth magnets, the Trump administration has been happy to stop escalating. After all, imports from China have been falling, down by 40% in the year to June, compared with the same period in 2024. Best to declare victory and call it a day.

But the US hasn’t won this battle – and there’s strong evidence to show it’s too chicken to really try.

Last week the White House was forced to accept that not buying Chinese stuff from China is not equivalent to not buying Chinese stuff. While China’s share of US imports has fallen pretty dramatically, its share of the total value added in US imports has not .

Trade adviser Peter Navarro was in a huff on Thursday, furious about Chinese motors bolted on to recliners imported from Vietnam. He cited an analysis by the commerce department that concluded $67bn of goods from China were transhipped through Mexico, India and Vietnam in 2025.

The White House released a report, The Great Transhipment Scam , which lamented that “when power supplies, control panels, aluminum sheet, valves, plastics, or furniture components are rerouted from China through Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia, Poland, or the UAE, they destroy or reduce jobs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, Toledo, Hickory, Phoenix, Youngstown, and dozens of other American manufacturing communities”.

It unveiled a new tool to engage in a globe-spanning game of Whac-A-Mole: an AI-powered border “detective” that “never sleeps, never tires, and never forgets” to scan every bill of lading and shipping manifest, ID rerouted stuff, and punish the perpetrators.

It goes without saying that the new detective will not restore factory jobs to Toledo, Hickory or Phoenix. Despite strenuous efforts to boost manufacturing employment over two and a half administrations spanning 10 years, it remains roughly in the same place as when Trump first came into office.

Cracking down on rerouted imports won’t dent the US import bill either. Despite Trump’s many tariffs, it is running higher than in 2024. And it looks unlikely to do much harm to China, whose exports have kept growing despite US efforts to squeeze them out.

But what is most perplexing about the White House’s resort to AI sleuthing, though, is that the US possesses a more straightforward tool to achieve its aims, one which directly addresses a critical driver of China’s massive exports, which are not only swamping the US but also threatening industrial development around the world: the undervalued Chinese yuan. Dealing with its undervaluation can do much to rein in China’s overwhelming exports.

Some economists will complain about this take. There are fundamental reasons for China’s huge trade surplus, mainly its depressed household consumption, which means it needs foreign consumers to support economic growth. There are also fundamental reasons for the US trade deficit: notably, its extraordinarily large budget deficit, which must be funded by savings from abroad (read China).

The yuan’s weakness, like the dollar’s comparative strength, are reflections of these dynamics. In other words, “the exchange rate is a symptom , not the disease”. If Beijing were to push up the exchange rate by fiat but did nothing else, it would slow China’s growth and reduce import prices, slow inflation (perhaps even causing deflation) and thus depress the real, after-inflation exchange rate. If, by contrast, the underlying ills were addressed, the yuan would appreciate naturally.

But give us a break. The exchange rate depends on those broad economic dynamics, sure. But the call to wait for Beijing to support household spending, say by raising meager pension benefits or some such, has the taste of those old exhortations to wait for China’s multiparty democracy to flourish. On the American side of the ledger, the last time the United States seriously tried to curb its budget deficit was in the 20th century. Pressure is needed for these things to happen. And exchange rate intervention could provide it.

It’s hard to overstate how Chinese exports weigh on the economies of the rest of the world. China’s share of global manufacturing exports has risen from 3% to 20% since 1995. It accounts for over half the global exports of hundreds of manufacturing products . Its current account surplus – equal to perhaps 5% of its GDP – is a huge drawdown on worldwide demand.

As Gene Frieda from the London School of Economics points out : “The barrier to progress is not policy design; it is policy preference.” This preference is to ensure the world’s dependence on China’s products, which it achieves via massive intervention to depress the value of the yuan.

And there is evidence for the power of exchange rates. The Plaza accord that weakened the dollar in the 1980s helped reduce the US trade deficit with Japan. China’s growing external surplus contracted sharply as the yuan appreciated following the global financial crisis. By contrast, the slide in China’s currency has underpinned a rising external surplus since 2023.

As Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations points out, history suggests currency adjustment would drive the economic realignment needed to reduce China’s overwhelming exports .

Revaluing the yuan would probably induce other policy changes to plug the world’s dramatic trade imbalances. Slowing export growth would slow the Chinese economy , tempting Beijing to stimulate domestic consumption to compensate. A smaller Chinese trade surplus would shrink the pool of foreign funding for the US budget deficit, perhaps even encouraging fiscal restraint in Washington.

Ideally, the US would coordinate efforts to revalue the yuan with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have also been hammered by Chinese exports. Pressure on Beijing would ideally be part of a plan to revalue other depressed east Asian currencies, like the Korean won, the Taiwanese dollar and the Japanese yen, to reduce competitive pressure on China.

The US has tools to pressure Beijing – notably, authority under section 301 of the Trade Act to impose tariffs on countries that purposely undervalue their currency. While Europe doesn’t have section 301, it could also impose tariffs to stop a surge of Chinese imports, as sanctioned by the World Trade Organization , and then link the protection to China’s exchange rate management.

Getting Beijing to change its exchange rate policy won’t be a walk in the park. Xi Jinping won’t slap his forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of this earlier?” Washington must be smart about deploying section 301 in this way – not its forte – and offer a believable path to de-escalation as Beijing allows the yuan to rise. The US must try not to alienate allies – sigh – and bring them onboard to grant both force and legitimacy to the effort.

Still, this approach is more promising than sitting back to wait for Xi’s worldview to change, or to ding weaker countries like Mexico and Vietnam for transshipping Chinese stuff because, after the rare-earth magnet fracas last year, Washington has become too chickenshit to ding China directly.

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMigAFBVV95cUxPSW0yU3RqTkNxcmFnT1B5TWJEVDRXcklzaGVPUlpraWxlWUhnTTBmQlhXaENuRHJnZnVna09jOU0yc1FldXNRVzZzM0t4N25raldRVVBSUVN6QjhodGlpRW1keU5QY01xTzJCbldVM0ZjRlpoVFpUV3dLQW9yZVA5MQ?oc=5