CFR senior fellow. Views are my own. Retweets are not endorsements. Writes on sovereign debt and capital flows.
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A related puzzle: why did hot money outflows (errors) fall off the cliff at the same time as FDI inflows? (my answer is that they didn't really, but it is a puzzle)
The gap between the cumulative flows since 2010 in the two series (mostly from 2014 to 2018) implies ~ $1 trillion in net foreign assets in the policy banks, consistent with the work of @AidData 
The US trade deficit in pharmaceuticals has gone from $50b to around $200b (close to 0.7 pp of US GDP)
Gearing up for the May trade data release
The latest balance of payments data only runs though q1 -- but the difference between the oil price and Saudi's breakeven implies a much larger deficit in q2 than in the past few quarters
in the past few quarters, China's reported current account surplus jumped up to $150b a quarter (it is still understated, I think it is really ~ $200b a quarter) and the state banks have added $50-100b a quarter to their foreign assets.
Pharma frankly should be easy -- as the US trade deficit in pharmaceuticals is made in America, as it stems from a flawed US tax policy. But that isn't how the Trump administration sees it ... and the real negotiations probably cannot start before the US case.
The swing in goods trade tied to tariff front running was bigger than any swing during the pandemic (admittedly, it was very concentrated in pharma and precious metals)
Unsurprisingly, there was a $8b or so outflow from Turkish lira denominated bonds in April -- an outflow equal to peak inflows. But as big as that was, it doesn't explain the ~ $35b swing in fx reserves
Actual export volumes are growing faster than nominal exports (export prices are falling) so the headline data actually understates China's export growth strength right now
China's long-term holdings dipped a bit (China's long-term holdings in US custodians that is) but Belgium (Euroclear)'s holds went up, so it doesn't look like China was a big seller ...
In fact, the strong rise in the net foreign asset position of the state banks increasingly suggests that the yuan is under appreciation pressure (as a result of the $100b monthly goods surplus) not depreciation pressure
The discrepancy between imports and exports is indeed striking, and is consistent across different data sets
Anyone who argues that the dollar's reserve currency role currently generates cheap financing for the US should be asked how precisely - it isn't because reserve managers are holding more dollars!
Export volume growth dipped to 8% (estimate based on April prices). Import volumes fell 4% (not good).
The massive March v April monthly swing tho washes out of the trailing 12m sum, and what shows are the more structural shifts -- like the huge run up in imports from Ireland
A bit more refined analysis shows the same thing -- namely that US imports from Vietnam and China were inversely correlated in the last few months (as happened with the initial section 301 China tariffs)
And true to form, the report indicates that tariffs are the preferred tool to address any future findings of manipulation
$10b a month/ $120b a year (annualized) is a lot -- it is roughly 15% of Taiwan's GDP. It is also roughly the number than may be needed to keep Taiwan's exchange rate stable for the rest of the year given Taiwan's massive external surplus