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As Donald Trump prepares to take office with plans to raise tariffs on China, the country says its trade surplus reached close to $1 trillion last year.
The General Administration of Customs of China said Monday its exports reached $3.58 trillion last year, while imports were $2.59 trillion, making a $990 billion trade surplus. Adjusted for inflation, the surplus, which surpassed China’s previous $838 billion record in 2022, is the most of any country in the past century, according to the New York Times (NYT-1.46%). More than a third of the trade surplus was with the U.S., according to the Financial Times.
China’s trade surplus for goods and services in December reached a single-month record of $104.8 billion.
Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration is reportedly looking to tone down the president-elect’s plans to impose tariffs of up to 20% on imported goods from other countries — a move that investors say is the U.S. economy’s “greatest risk.” The president-elect has also raised the idea of imposing tariffs of up to 60% on China, as well as 25% tariffs on the country’s top trading partners, Canada and Mexico.
Trump’s aides are looking for ways to narrow the plan to only impact critical imports, the Washington Post reported, citing three unnamed people familiar with the matter. The president-elect’s team could reportedly consider tariffs on key sectors such as defense manufacturing, energy production, and medical supplies.
Trump responded to the report on his Truth Social account, calling it “wrong” and saying it “incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back.”
The outgoing Biden administration, meanwhile, released new rules on chip sales to foreign countries on Monday, saying the curbs will “strengthen U.S. security and economic strength.” U.S.-based chipmaker Nvidia bashed the new rules, calling them “unprecedented and misguided.”