China released the January-February trade rollup on Friday and the verdict wasn’t great.

Exports grew just 2.3%, a poor showing indicative of front-loading “give back” (if you will) and the imposition of a new, 10% levy on shipments to the US.

Recall that export growth was nearly 11% in December, as buyers abroad rushed to beat “Trade War 2.0,” which kicked off early last month.

Although Donald Trump postponed duties on Canada and Mexico (twice), China didn’t get a reprieve and frankly appeared uninterested in bargaining for one. It’s almost as if Beijing suspects Trump’s not a guy who negotiates in good faith. Hold that thought.

Although economists anticipated a drop-off, consensus still expected exports to grow nearly 6% during January and February versus the same period a year ago. The actual result thus counted as “a material downside surprise,” to quote SocGen’s Michelle Lam.

As the figure shows, imports were a disaster. The 8.4% contraction, attributable to iron ore and coal, was a shocker against consensus, which expected a small gain. Plainly, domestic demand hasn’t recovered. Nowhere near. And the property crisis isn’t over.

Do note: Although the data captures the imposition of the new levy mentioned above (and that duty doubled this week, by the way), it also covers five weeks prior to the new tariffs, which suggests the front-loading impulse (evidenced by still-elevated shipments to the US) was partially offset by a significant downturn in external demand.

To reiterate: Xi Jinping’s out of time. He has to (has to, has to) revive the consumption impulse at home. Beijing said at the NPC this week that overall growth’s going to be 5% again this year. Friday’s trade data didn’t exactly back up that assertion.

The Party also said it’ll run a record deficit in pursuit of stimulus aimed at encouraging Chinese to spend, but so far, nothing’s working and the outlook’s bleak. “Given the already thin margins of China’s exporters, the room for further price cuts may be limited,” SocGen’s Lam went on, adding that on her math, a 20% increase in US tariffs “will hit China’s overall exports by 3ppt.”

On Friday, Wang Yi — think of Wang as a Chinese Sergei Lavrov, only without Lavrov’s mordant sense of humor — described America’s trade policy as “evil” and called Trump “two-faced.” On that, at least, you can trust Wang. “It takes one to know one,” as the old saying goes.