China Brushes Off Trump Tariffs With Jaw-Dropping $1 Trillion Surplus

China appeared largely unfazed by the Trump administration’s tariff regime, posting a record annual trade surplus of more than $1 trillion as of November.

According to new customs data released Monday, China’s exports climbed 5.9% from a year earlier to $330.3 billion, following a 1.1% drop in October, the Associated Press reported. Over the first 11 months of the year, China’s total trade surplus grew 22.1%, reaching roughly $1.08 trillion, already surpassing last year’s full-year surplus of $992 billion.

The widening trade gap comes even as exports to the U.S. continue to crater. Shipments to the U.S. dropped nearly 29% compared to 2024, marking the eighth straight month of declines.

The numbers also come on the heels of a year-long trade truce reached in late October between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a meeting in South Korea. Under the agreement, the U.S. reduced some tariffs on Chinese goods, while Beijing pledged to lift its export restrictions on rare earth minerals and resume imports of American soybeans.

Economists say those tariff cuts likely have not yet shown up in the November export data.

“It’s likely that November exports have yet to fully reflect the tariff cut, which should feed through in the coming months,” Lynn Song, ING’s chief economist for Greater China, wrote in a