China posts world record $1.19T trade surplus as Carney begins Beijing visit
China reported the world’s largest trade surplus on record last year as its export growth accelerated into markets across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
China reported the world’s largest trade surplus on record last year as its export growth accelerated into markets across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, flooding global supply chains with manufactured goods.
China’s overall trade surplus hit $1.19 trillion in 2025, a 20 per cent increase from 2024, citing figures released Wednesday by China’s General Administration of Customs.
For December alone, China posted a surplus of $114.14 billion, propelled by surging exports to multiple regions outside the United States, the paper reported.
The surplus continued widening even as U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs to contain Chinese exports. The New York Times reported China’s trade surplus with the United States fell 22 per cent last year, but Chinese factories increased sales to other markets and, in some cases, bypassed U.S. tariffs by shipping goods through intermediary countries.
The record surplus was released the same day Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Beijing, as Canada seeks to stabilize its trade relationship with China amid ongoing tariff disputes.
Chinese imports from Canada fell 10.4 per cent in 2025 to $41.7 billion, the first annual decline since 2020, during the pandemic.
Carney’s trip to China is the first by a Canadian prime minister since 2017 and is expected to focus on repairing a long-running rift that deepened after Ottawa imposed 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024, a move Canada took in lockstep with the United States.
“China is our second-largest trading partner, and the world’s second-largest economy. A pragmatic and constructive relationship between our nations will create greater stability, security, and prosperity on both sides of the Pacific,” Carney said in a social media post cited by Reuters.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand told reporters in Beijing that talks on canola tariffs had been productive and would continue, while describing the bilateral relationship as “complex”.
China’s canola-related tariffs have been a key point of dispute, especially for Western Canadian producers.
China’s massive trade surplus has been supported by weak domestic demand, industrial overcapacity and a relatively weak local currency, which makes exports cheaper abroad while increasing the cost of imports.
The International Monetary Fund warned China’s continued reliance on export-led growth risks intensifying global trade tensions.
China is not a friend of Canada.
China is not a friend of anybody in the world.
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See above...
If it looks like a pointed object that would be Carney using it to poke the bear who is currently the President of America.
The guy that is now on record as saying there is nothing he needs from Canada and that he has zero interest in renegotiating the USMCA.
While YES... Trump is always negotiating he is certainly showing he is serious about moving everything he can back to the USA.
There is no need, for example to send a vehicle across the Canada/USA border multiple times to get some holes drilled or a part installed.
The only reason is the USMCA.
If it looks like Carney is going out of his way piss off Trump..
YEP... It sure does.
How do you think Trump is going to like any deal that the fraud who is Canada's PM might make with the Communists in China?
There is no such thing as trade with China without entanglements. Canada sees it as simply trade. The Chinese see it as a hook that can be used to manipulate a country to do what it desires. The deeper the hook is embedded, the more effective Chinese manipulation of the subservient (the Chinese perspective) country.