At News N Economics, Rebecca Wilder shares this chart to show that any global economic recovery that was underway earlier this year has slowed down:

Wilder:

The chart illustrates the growth of import demand for manufactured goods from the US (12.8% of world import demand in 2011) and China (9.7% of world import demand in 2011) on a 3-month over 3-month annualized and seasonally adjusted basis. Spanning April through June 2011 compared to January through March 2011, US imports for manufactured goods slowed to a 4.9% annualized clip, while Chinese manufacturing imports contracted at a 22.9% annualized pace. US import demand growth peaked at 36.9% in March 2011 (again, on the same 3M/3M SAAR basis), while Chinese import demand growth peaked a bit earlier at 108.2% in January 2011.

So could this be the result of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami?  Wilder does not think so.  Read Global slowdown underway - it's more than the Japanese supply chain disruptions here.