China’s trade surplus climbs past $1 trillion for first time

China got the world’s attention last January when it announced that its trade surplus for goods and services had hit almost $1 trillion, an excess of exports to imports that no country had ever reached.

- KEITH BRADSHER

Now China has surged through that milestone in just 11 months this year. China’s customs agency announced on Monday that the country’s accumulated trade surplus reached $1.08 trillion through November.

Tariffs imposed by US President Trump on China have caused Chinese exports to the US to drop by nearly a fifth. But China has throttled back its purchases of American soybeans and other products by almost the same rate, continuing to sell three times as much to the US as it buys.

China’s $111.68 billion trade surplus in November was its third-largest ever in a single month. The overall surplus through the first 11 months of the year is up 21.7 percent from the same period last year.