Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander Bank, said that any impact was likely to be small. “The biggest deflationary force in goods prices here of late has been used vehicles, which has nothing to do with China,” he said.

BYD, China’s biggest carmaker, recently announced price cuts of between 5 and 15 per cent for its electric vehicles in Germany, after Mercedes-Benz warned late last year that its profits were being hit by a “brutal” price war in electric vehicles.