China's trade ends 2025 with record trillion-dollar surplus despite Trump tariffs

By Xiuhao Chen and Joe Cash

BEIJING, Jan 14 (Reuters) - China on Wednesday reported a strong export run in 2025 with a record trillion-dollar surplus, as producers braced for three more years of a Trump administration set on ​slowing the production powerhouse by shifting U.S. orders to other markets.

Beijing's resilience to renewed tariff tensions since President Donald ‌Trump returned to the White House last January has emboldened Chinese firms to shift their focus to Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America to offset U.S. duties.

With ‌Beijing looking to exports to counteract a prolonged property slump and sluggish domestic demand, the record-shattering surplus risks further unsettling economies concerned about China's trade practices and overcapacity, as well as their overreliance on key Chinese products.

The manufacturing powerhouse's full-year trade surplus came in at $1.189 trillion - a figure on par with the GDP of a top-20 economy globally like Saudi Arabia - customs data showed on Wednesday, having broken the ⁠trillion-dollar ceiling for the first time in November.

Outbound ‌shipments grew 6.6% in value terms year-on-year in December, compared with a 5.9% increase in November. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 3.0% increase.

Imports were up 5.7%, after a 1.9% bump the month ‍earlier and beat a forecast for a 0.9% uptick.

Monthly export surpluses exceeded $100 billion seven times last year, partially underpinned by a weakened yuan, up from just once in 2024, underscoring that Trump's actions have barely dented China's trade with the wider world even if he has curbed U.S.-bound shipments.

Economists ​expect China to continue gaining global market share this year, helped by Chinese firms setting up overseas production hubs that provide ‌lower-tariff access to the United States and the European Union, as well as by strong demand for lower-grade chips and other electronics.

A flagship of Beijing's global industrial ambitions, China's auto industry saw overall exports jump 19.4% to 5.79 million vehicles last year, with pure EV shipments up 48.8%. China would likely remain the world's top auto exporter for a third year after first superseding Japan in 2023.

Beijing, however, has shown signs of recognising it must moderate its industrial exports if it is to sustain its success, and the ⁠leadership has been increasingly cognizant and vocal about imbalances in China's economy and ​the image problem outsized exports are causing.

After November's trillion-dollar surplus data, Chinese Premier ​Li Qiang was quoted last week on national television as calling for "proactively expanding imports and promoting the balanced development of imports and exports."