HONG KONG (AP) — China’s exports contracted in October, hit by a 25 percent drop in shipments to the United States, the government reported last week.

Persisting trade tensions with Washington may get a respite in the final quarter of the year after President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last month agreed to de-escalate the trade dispute between the two largest economies, but trade friction still appears to be casting a pall on demand elsewhere.

Customs data show a 1.1 percent drop in China’s global exports in October compared to a year earlier, the weakest since February, following an 8.3 percent increase in September.

Imports rose 1 percent last month from the year before, compared with 7.4 percent growth in September.

China’s shipments to the U.S. have already fallen by double-digits for seven consecutive months, while it has diversified its export markets to regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa.

The October decline also was affected by a high base for the same month in 2024, when exports growth soared more than 12.6 percent, the fastest rate in more than two years.

Imports rose 1 percent last month, compared with a 7.4 percent growth in September year-on-year. Economists said a prolonged property sector downturn and weak domestic consumption remains a concern.

At their meeting in South Korea in late October, Trump and Xi agreed to lower tariffs and postpone new port fees they had imposed on each other’s vessels.

China paused some of its export controls on rare earths for one year and agreed to purchase more soybeans and other farm products from the U.S. The U.S. eased some sanctions on Chinese companies.

Goldman Sachs economists said following the Trump-Xi meeting that they expect Chinese export volumes to grow by 5 percent to 6 percent annually, helping China to gain global market share and driving its overall economic expansion.

“The reduction in some of these tariffs as part of the latest U.S.-China trade ‘deal’ may provide a small boost to exports,” Leah Fahy and Zichun Huang, China economists at Capital Economics, wrote in a recent note.

That won’t show up until later in the last quarter of this year, they said.

A “meaningful” U.S. export boost would probably start in the first quarter of next year and then accelerate in the second quarter, said Wei Li, head of Multi-Asset Investments at BNP Paribas Securities (China).