China exports sharply beat expectations as trade surplus in the first two months surges to highest on record

China’s trade surplus rose to its highest on record in the combined January-February period, while exports massively beat expectations, underscoring the resilience of the world’s second-largest economy despite trade tensions with the U.S.

China typically combines January and February trade data to smooth distortions from the shifting Lunar New Year holiday.

The trade balance surged to $213.62 billion, compared with expectations of $179.6 billion.

Exports from China rose 21.8% year on year in the combined January-February period, beating the 7.1% growth expected by economists polled by Reuters.

Imports rose 19.8% in the first two months from a year earlier, against expectations of a 6.3% growth, customs data showed Wednesday.

Government data showed that while trade with the U.S. plunged 16.9% to 609.71 billion yuan ($88.22 billion) compared with the same period the year before, trade with the EU climbed 19.9% to 998.94 billion yuan.

Trade with ASEAN also rose 20.3% to reach 1.24 trillion yuan.

The trade figures come after China’s consumer inflation recorded its biggest jump in more than three years, supported by spending during an extended holiday.

The surprise was partly due to the relatively late Lunar New Year holiday, which may have boosted the year-on-year growth rate compared with last year, Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said in a note following the data release. However, he added that it “probably cannot fully explain the surprise.”

Zhang said the strong export performance, combined with the relatively low growth target set during Beijing’s annual “Two Sessions” policy meetings, suggests that additional stimulus is unlikely in the near term.

At the “Two Sessions” policy meeting, Premier Li Qiang set a GDP growth target of 4.5% to 5%, the lowest range since the early 1990s.

China’s CPI rose 1.3% in February from a year earlier and surpassed economists’ forecasts for a 0.8% increase in a Reuters poll.

The increase, following a 0.2% rise in January, marked the strongest rebound since January 2023.

The data also comes as Chinese Premier Li Qiang acknowledged the impact of U.S. tariffs while outlining economic targets on Thursday during the “Two Sessions” meeting.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a trade war since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office in January 2025, with both sides raising and lowering tariffs on each other’s goods throughout 2025.

However, relations improved after a meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Busan, South Korea, in October.

U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods currently stand at the global 10% level after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

However, earlier tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 remain in effect for some products, reaching as high as 100%.

Business intelligence firm China Briefing said in February that “due to the multitude of existing duties, the effective tariff rate on many Chinese goods shipped to the US remains close to 30 percent – still the highest of any country.”

— CNBC’s Anniek Bao and Evelyn Cheng contributed to this story.