China's Trade Surplus With U.S. Grows as Foreign Trade Hits New High

TaiwanPlus News

China's exports in 2024 rose to a record high, with its custom officials reporting that combined trade reached 43.85 trillion yuan (US$5.98 trillion) for the world's second-largest economy. It's a rare highlight for what's been a sluggish Chinese economy and comes amid looming potential tariffs from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. For more, TaiwanPlus spoke to Asia-Pacific chief economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero from Natixis.

Transcript

00:00China recorded nearly 6 trillion U.S. dollars in overall trade last year,

00:04marking a record high for the world's second-largest economy.

00:08According to the latest data released by the World Trade Organization,

00:12China's imports increased by more than 1% in the first three quarters of last year.

00:19We expect to remain the second-largest importer country throughout the year.

00:24Customs officials reported total imports and exports have grown 5% year-on-year,

00:29and that Beijing's so-called circle of friends in foreign trade continues to expand.

00:34Exports were a main driver of China's growth,

00:36particularly electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels.

00:40China's economy has been struggling to bounce back from a property market crisis,

00:44weak consumption, and rising government debt.

00:49China's latest figures are also the last batch of trade data

00:52before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

00:55He has pledged to slap sweeping tariffs on trade partners, including China,

00:59a move that economists have warned could harm global trade.

01:03For more on this, Joyce Zeng spoke to Asia-Pacific economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero.

01:08China has posted record high trade figures,

01:11but this comes at a time of a weakening yuan or RMB.

01:15How are you making sense of the state of China's economy?

01:20Well, it is a record, but especially for exports.

01:23Imports have barely grown.

01:25The reason is quite simple.

01:26The RMB is weak, and because it's weak, imports are too expensive,

01:31and exports are being supported by the exchange rate.

01:35So that's what we have.

01:37Of course, this also means that Trump is watching, yeah?

01:42And he's going to come and see all of these numbers with a big trade surplus for China,

01:47and, you know, he's not going to like it, so I don't know.

01:50They're good numbers for China, but how long can they last is really the key question.

01:55What position does this leave China in with just days until Donald Trump becomes the U.S. president?

02:01Well, frankly speaking, there's two things making it hard for China at the current juncture.

02:08One is Trump.

02:09I mean, you don't want to have strong exports right before inauguration.

02:13Trump is going to watch poor economies.

02:18And by the way, Taiwan is another one with big trade surpluses.

02:23So you don't want to be on the spotlight at that juncture.

02:27But the other one, and that is unrelated to Trump at least so far,

02:32it's the very, very strong U.S. economy.

02:37Investors want to jump to the dollar.

02:39So for the RMB, this is a problem.

02:41So it is not only Trump.

02:43It's about this very strong economy in the U.S., to be very frank,

02:46and that means the Fed will not cut.

02:49That means why not just put your money, if it's not already there, in dollar rather than keep it in RMB.

02:57It's pretty hard for any currency, any currency which is not the dollar, to be frank.

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