Another straw in the wind

In most countries—and the USA is no exception—import volumes correlate well with the economic cycle, though they tend to lag a little behind it.  Although US import volumes rose a little year-on-year in March, the trend is clearly down.  Have the Trump tariffs something to do with it?  Prolly something.  But the slowdown in imports isn't anomalously large over the last year.  So maybe not that much.  Yet.  Remember that given the size of the US economy, its declining import volumes are significant negatives for other economies too.  And the other big player, China, has also had slowing import volumes over the last year (the recent "recovery" is seasonal).

Import volumes are shown as a yoy % change