China reports record $1.2 trillion trade surplus for 2025, defying Trump’s tariffs

HONG KONG — China had its biggest trade surplus ever last year at almost $1.2 trillion, according to data released Wednesday, defying tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed on the world’s second-largest economy.

China is sending more exports to other parts of the world, even as it struggles with domestic economic troubles.

China’s foreign trade in goods last year totaled 45.47 trillion yuan ($6.51 trillion), up 3.8% from the year before, state media reported, citing figures from the General Administration of Customs. That included 26.99 trillion yuan ($3.8 trillion) in exports and 18.48 trillion yuan ($2.6 trillion) in imports.

Exports grew 6.1% compared with the previous year, while imports grew 0.5%.

Export growth rates to emerging markets such as Latin America, the Middle East and Africa were all faster than the overall rate, said Wang Jun, a vice minister at China’s customs administration.

“Trade partners are more diversified, and the ability to resist risks has significantly increased,” he said at a news conference in Beijing, adding that the fundamentals of China’s foreign trade “remain solid.”

Stocks in mainland China and Hong Kong were up after the trade data was reported, with the Shanghai Composite index reaching its highest level in more than a decade.

The yearly data comes after China’s trade surplus surpassed the $1 trillion mark for the first time in November, compared with a trade surplus of $992 billion for all of 2024.

China had a monthly trade surplus of more than $100 billion seven times last year, helped in part by a weak yuan, compared with just once in 2024. Its overall exports have remained strong even as exports to the U.S. fell 28% in 2025, according to a report this week published by shipping data company Project 44.

China, a manufacturing giant and one of the U.S.’ biggest trading partners, heavily depends on exports for growth because of sluggish domestic demand and a long-running crisis in its property sector.

Though Chinese officials are trying to rebalance the economy, structural constraints are “making a meaningful shift away from export-led growth improbable in the short to medium term,” said Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University who specializes in international trade.

Trump has imposed steep tariffs on Chinese goods since he returned to office last January, blaming the U.S. trade deficit with China on unfair trade practices. Several rounds of retaliatory tariffs by both countries brought tariffs as high as 145%, amounting to an effective trade embargo.

Though Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in October to extend a trade truce for one year, the U.S. tariff rate on Chinese goods remains at 47.5%, which experts say is too high for Chinese exporters to make a profit.

Chinese exporters have navigated the U.S. tariffs by tapping into other markets “with great success,” said Tianchen Xu, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. They have also restructured supply chains by shifting lower-end manufacturing to third countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere that face lower U.S. tariffs.

“This means Chinese goods are now a global necessity,” Xu, who is based in Beijing, told NBC News in emailed comments.

The increase in Chinese exports to countries other than the U.S. has raised concerns that their markets will be flooded with low-cost Chinese goods that threaten domestic producers.

“If even the U.S. and the E.U. struggle to absorb the surge of Chinese exports without resorting to trade defenses, few other countries are in a better position to cope,” Gao said in emailed comments.

U.S. exports to China have also fallen amid the trade tensions. Those tensions could be further inflamed by Trump’s threat on Monday to impose a 25% tariff on countries that do business with Iran amid a deadly government crackdown on protesters.

A spokesperson for the foreign ministry of China, Iran’s biggest trading partner, said Tuesday that “there are no winners in a tariff war, and China will firmly safeguard its own legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”

Trump said Tuesday that he thought China could further open its markets to U.S. goods, once again citing his “great relationship” with Xi.

“I think it’s going to happen,” he said, without elaborating.