US EditionChina's trade ends 2025 with record trillion-dollar surplus despite Trump tariffs
China's $1.2 trillion surplus in 2025 reflects strong global demand and shifting export markets despite U.S. tariffs, with December exports up 6.6%, customs data showed.
- Dateline Qingdao: trade figures released JANUARY 13, 2026 show China's exports surged 5.9% in December, beating analysts' 3% estimate, and the annual trade surplus reached a record high.
- Exporters shifted shipments to non‑U.S. markets, prompting concern from the European Union, while an October rollback of export controls and tariffs after a Xi–Trump meeting eased trade frictions.
- The IMF's Kristalina Georgieva urged Beijing to reduce export dependence and boost domestic consumption, while Zhiwei Zhang expects macro policy to remain unchanged into Q1 amid strong exports.
- Next Monday China will release its annual and fourth-quarter GDP data, with economists polled by Reuters expecting a 4.50% expansion while Beijing targets around 5% growth for 2025.
- The nearly $19 trillion economy faces deflationary pressure and a real estate collapse that weigh on household demand, while consumer prices in 2025 stayed flat, missing the official target of around 2%.
177 Articles
177 Articles
China Trade Surplus Surges to $1.2 Trillion, Defying US Tariffs
Squeeze the global economy in one spot, and it just bulges out somewhere else. On Wednesday, the Chinese government announced that its trade surplus rose 20% to an all-time high of $1.2 trillion in 2025, even as the trade war led to a marked drop in exports to the US. With Or Without You Shipments to the US, China’s longtime largest trading partner (excluding blocs such as the European Union or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), fell 2…
Trump’s tariffs reduced China’s surplus with US — and made it the world’s headache
China's trade surplus hit a record $1.2 trillion in 2025. Trump had always prefaced his tariffs by pointing to China's trade surplus, but his actions have not only failed to reduce that figure but also resulted in the country gaining greater global dominance
China announced a record-high trade surplus for 2025, despite a slowdown in trade with the United States due to Trump's tariffs, as exports to ASEAN, Africa, and Latin America surged to compensate.
Beijing.- China announced Wednesday the largest trade surplus in history, even adjusted to inflation, while a tsunami of its exports flooded markets around the world last year. China’s surplus, understood as the value of goods and services it sold abroad against its imports, reached $1.19 trillion, an increase of 20 percent over 2024, according to data published by the country’s general customs administration. The figure had already exceeded $1 …
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