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China has reported a record full-year trade surplus of $1.2tn for 2025, as exports soared despite US President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Exports in goods grew 6.6 per cent in dollar terms in December on a year earlier, according to official data released on Wednesday by the customs administration. That was more than double the average forecast from a Bloomberg poll of analysts of 3.1 per cent and greater than November’s growth rate of 5.9 per cent.
China’s imports rose 5.7 per cent in dollars last month on a year earlier, also far outpacing analyst expectations of 0.9 per cent growth and the previous month’s figure of 1.9 per cent.
The full-year trade surplus exceeded $1tn for the first time, beating last year’s figure of $993bn, as Chinese exporters diverted production away from the US market to other destinations, principally in the EU and south-east Asia.
The December figures also capped a blockbuster year for China’s factories, which captured a growing share of the global market for manufactured goods.
Trump this year threatened tariffs as high as 145 per cent on Chinese goods. Beijing countered with its own levies and imposed restrictions on exports of rare earths — critical minerals needed for global manufacturing — that led the two sides to agree a one-year truce in their trade war at a summit in South Korea in October.
“China’s staggering trade surplus is simultaneously a symbol of its exporting prowess and the weaknesses in its growth model,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of economics at Cornell University.
“The economy’s reliance on exports rather than domestic demand to power growth is a bad omen both for China and the world economy.”
Additional contributions by Wenjie Ding in Beijing
