CFR senior fellow. Views are my own. Retweets are not endorsements. Writes on sovereign debt and capital flows.
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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
The deficit in consumer goods (a category dominated by pharmaceuticals and China) unsurprisingly collapsed --
There was a time when reserve accumulation by the large surplus countries in Asia mapped perfectly to their external surplus, and their reserve accumulation really did generate large financial inflows into the US 
For quite some time, Japanese banks were pushed out the curve by a flat curve (especially in a world where YCC limited yields on bonds out to 10ys) -- 
I understand why most folks in the market are discounting Trump tariff threats, but I remain worried -- there just isn't a willingness in Europe to do the unilateral concessions Trump insists are needed.
What's more, the reported US asks of Europe reflect a rather stale and dated conception of how to rebalance the bilateral trade relationship -- I was expecting/ hoping for more out of USTR
The rising surplus reflects both renewed nominal export growth (volumes are growing even faster, 10-15%) and weak imports ... with manufacturing imports (including parts for reexport) of $1.5 trillion relative to exports of nearly $3.5 trillion -- a huge gap
The low for long era (with a different shaped curve in Japan and the US/ Europe) pushed the insurers into foreign bonds & big Japanese institutions like Post bank and Nochu as well. These institutions have yen liabilities, and thus naturally would match with yen bonds
One of the reasons for relatively strong flows in March (and q1) was, well, Japan. but it is stale data. Japanese sales of Treasuries in 2024 were driven by MoF intervention.