China’s exports hit record high as Trump tariffs loom

China’s exports hit a record high in 2024, state media has reported, a welcome boost for the world’s second-largest economy as United States President-elect Donald Trump’s promised tariffs threaten to dampen growth.

Exports rose 10.7 percent year-on-year, customs data showed on Monday, comfortably beating economists ‘ forecasts.

Imports, which were widely expected to decline, rose 1 percent, the strongest performance since July 2024, customs data showed.

The figures are more encouraging given that Trump is expected to make a comeback to the White House on January 20th, armed with a populist economic agenda that includes significant tariffs on Chinese goods.

According to economists, Trump’s tariff proposals almost certainly will raise US consumer prices and hurt Chinese exporters’ profit margins.

A 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports would lower China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 2.5 percentage points over the following 12 months, analysts at Swiss bank UBS have estimated.

China’s exports look set to remain strong in the near term as firms frontload shipments to avoid higher tariffs, said Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics, in a note.

Due to a weak real effective exchange rate, Huang wrote, “Outbound shipments are likely to remain resilient in the near-term, supported by further increases in the global market share.”

Beijing has made some of its most drastic moves to boost the economy since the COVID-19 pandemic, including policy rate cuts and loosening restrictions on property purchases, amid concerns that its 5-percent GDP growth target is slipping short.

A number of issues, including a prolonged real estate crisis, weak consumer sentiment, and population decline, have caused the Chinese economy to experience some of its slowest growth in decades.

Beijing will release its GDP figures for both the fourth quarter and the entire year 2024 on Friday.