China’s trade climbs past $1 trillion

China got the world’s attention in 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.

- -NYT

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

Tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on China have caused Chinese exports to the United States 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 United States as it buys.