US-China Trade Falls as China's Global Exports Surge

Delayed trade data has started to flow out from the U.S. Census Bureau. More than a month behind schedule, the latest data on trade between the U.S. and China is for September 2025. As expected, the total value of goods exchanged between the two nations slipped for the second month, falling from $33.4 billion in the previous month to $31.8 billion.

That’s a net figure. U.S. exports to China were up from August 2025′s level, rising $108 million to $8.38 billion. That gain was offset by a much larger decline in the value of goods exported from China to the U.S. in September, which fell by $1.71 billion to $23.41 billion.

The trailing twelve month average, which smooths out annual seasonality in the trade data, declined to $40.0 billion in September 2025. This figure is $9.6 billion, or 19.6%, below our counterfactual projection of what the level of trade between the U.S. and China would have been during the month in the absence of the global tariff war, had trade between the nations continued growing at the rate it was between March 2024 and March 2025.

The following chart presents the monthly data for the combined value of goods exchanged between the U.S. and China along with its trailing twelve month average in the period from January 2017 through September 2025.

The U.S. and China struck a new truce in the tariff war on 1 November 2025. This new deal lowered tariffs considerably more than their earlier 28 June deal, but we won’t see its effect in the data until November 2025′s data becomes available early in 2026.

Because of that deal’s timing, we anticipate another negative month or two for U.S.-China trade data when October 2025′s data is finally reported. Though it has not yet been scheduled, we anticipate that data will become available in the first weeks of January 2026. It’s possible it may be reported along with the data for November 2026 as the Census Bureau gets fully caught up.

Despite lacking the full detail of the U.S.’ import/export data, we do know that China reported a more-than-$1 trillion surplus in its trade with the world in in year-to-date. This record level was achieved because of China’s falling level of trade with the U.S. and because China’s domestic economy has struggled to grow during 2025.

That’s possible because the ongoing negative impact of the U.S.-China tariff war and China’s lack of domestic demand has resulted in Chinese producers having more goods available to export elsewhere. Which they have, because Chinese producers are facing a cash crunch and need the money.

Their actions are becoming a flashpoint in the regions where China is shipping its excess production. In particular, the European Union is threatening to impose new retaliatory tariffs against China’s exporters, on top of its recent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles that have been flooding into the EU.

China’s economic situation has worsened enough that China’s official government data can no longer conceal it. Here are headlines from 14 December 2025:

• China’s Economy Is Deteriorating on Several Fronts
• China’s economy stalls in November as calls grow for reform
• Xi Blasts “Reckless” Projects Exaggerating Growth After China Reveals Dismal Macro Data For November

How the imbalances that resulted in these headlines get settled will be one of the bigger economic themes of 2026. Stay tuned!

References

U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (FT900). U.S. Trade in Goods with China, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Nominal Figures, Total Census Basis. [Online database]. Accessed 19 November 2025.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: “An editorial cartoon showing Chinese container ships labeled ‘Made in China’ being diverted with large arrows away from the United States and toward other regions such as Europe, Africa, and South America”. Sadly, in the original image produced by this prompt, Copilot didn’t produce anything that looked like the actual continent of South America, oddly choosing to instead rename sub-Saharan Africa as “South America”. The image still sort-of worked for our editorial purposes after several minor fixes, but we miss South America and urge Copilot to both acknowledge its existence and give the continent its due.