Beijing
—
China recorded the world’s biggest ever trade surplus in 2025, capping off a year in which the world’s largest manufacturer defied US trade pressure by ramping up exports to other global markets.
The huge trade surplus – a measure of how much more a country exports than it imports – stood at a record $1.2 trillion, marking a 20% jump from 2024 with Chinese companies deepening their pivot away from US consumers toward emerging markets in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.
China’s exports to the US, historically China’s largest single market, was down 19.5% overall in 2025 versus the previous year.
But while Beijing’s resilience in the face of US President Donald Trump’s trade war will be heralded as a victory inside China, globally, the surplus risks further inflaming trade tensions among nations who fear being overwhelmed by lower-cost Chinese imports.
Chinese officials have touted strong trade, particularly in key sectors such as electric vehicles, as a sign of the country’s durability, even with exports to the US dropping steeply as the world’s two largest economies engaged in a tit-for-tat trade confrontation throughout last year.
China “forged ahead” despite facing a “complex and challenging external environment,” Wang Jun, deputy administrator of the customs bureau, told a press briefing on Wednesday.
Exports of high-tech goods, a category including high-end machine tools and industrial robots, increased by 13% year on year, while exports for electric vehicles, lithium batteries and photovoltaic products, like solar panels, were up 27%.
Instead of seeing exports sink as the US and China ratcheted up tariffs on each other’s goods, China has driven its products deeper into other markets around the world – building on the country’s global economic footprint and strategies Chinese companies developed during Trump’s first trade war.
Exports to regions beyond the US saw significant increases, with the value of goods sent to Africa up 26.5%, Association of Southeast Asian nations up 14%, the European Union up 9% and Latin America up 8% year-on-year.
That’s caused frictions with major trading partners across the world, who have raised concerns about what they see as unfair trade practices and an influx of Chinese products hurting their key domestic industries, impacting jobs and threatening economic security.
During a recent visit to Beijing, French President Emmanuel Macron described his country’s mounting trade imbalance with China as unsustainable, echoing European policy makers who have urged Beijing to increase domestic consumption and curb exports.
Nonetheless, strong exports throughout last year provided Beijing with the required confidence to stand toe-to-toe with the US during months-long trade negotiations – which came to a head in October, when Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met and agreed to a truce that whittles new tariffs on Chinese goods down to 20%. Tariffs had briefly risen as high as 145% earlier that year.
That truce has remained in place, though Trump on Monday said countries that do business with Iran will face a new 25% tariff – an announcement that could subject China, a key economic lifeline for the regime in Tehran, to elevated duties.
Exporters are prepared for more frictions in the relationship to come, as Trump has made reducing dependence on China and bringing back American manufacturing a tenet of his administration.
Analysts have questioned whether China can maintain its level of exports to the rest of the world in the year ahead – especially as countries increasingly explore ways to protect domestic markets from what’s commonly called Chinese “industrial overcapacity.”
China’s reliance on exports as a growth engine is also tied to challenges at home, where the economy is dragged by an ongoing property sector crisis.
Authorities have struggled to boost domestic consumption and achieve a desired model, in which the country’s vast manufacturing sector is powered by strong demand both at home and abroad.
