China trade surplus tops $1tn for first time amid pivot to counter US lull | International Trade News

Chinese exports climb as exporters reroute shipments to other markets amid slump in shipments to the US.

Published On 8 Dec 20258 Dec 2025

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China’s annual trade surplus in goods has topped $1 trillion for the first time, with plunging exports to the United States amid a tariff war more than compensated for by shipments to other markets, new data shows.

Figures released by China’s General Administration of Customs on Monday showed the trade surplus for the first 11 months of the year hit $1.08 trillion in November, as exports climbed 5.9 percent year-on-year that month, reversing a 1.1 percent decline the month prior.

The leap came despite a continued slump in exports to the US, which fell 28.6 percent to $33.8bn last month, the data showed.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a bitter trade war involving hefty tariffs during the second administration of US President Donald Trump, forcing Chinese exporters to pivot to other markets – although the leaders of the world’s two largest economies agreed to pause the hostilities during a meeting in South Korea in October.

“China’s trade surplus this year has already surpassed last year’s level, and we expect it to widen further next year,” Zichun Huang of Capital Economics wrote in a note.

Huang said the weakness in exports to the US was “more than offset by shipments to other markets”.

Exports were “likely to remain resilient”, Huang added, due to trade rerouting and rising price competitiveness for Chinese goods, as deflation pushed down its real effective exchange rate.

French warnings over surplus

Exports have proven critical to China’s economy as it grapples with a debt crisis in the property sector and sluggish domestic spending, impacting its growth.

But China’s towering trade surplus has rankled leading Western trading partners, with French President Emmanuel Macron the latest to threaten action if the imbalance is not addressed.

Macron, fresh from a state visit to China, in an interview with the French newspaper Les Echos on Sunday, warned that Europe could follow the US in imposing tariffs on Beijing if the surplus were not reduced in the coming months.

Exports to the European Union grew by an annual 14.8 percent last month, while shipments to Australia rose 35.8 percent. Meanwhile, the fast-growing Southeast Asian economies took in 8.2 percent more goods over the same period.

That boosted China’s trade surplus to $111.68bn in November, the highest since June, from $90.07bn recorded the previous month, and above a forecast of $100.2bn.

Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note that November’s rebound of export growth had helped to “mitigate the weak domestic demand”, amid a slowdown in economic momentum being partly driven by weakness in the property sector.

In an indication of China’s weak domestic consumption, new customs data showed that imports rose 1.9 percent on-year in November, less than had been predicted.