China’s trade surplus in goods this year topped $1 trillion for the first time, a milestone that underscores the dominance that the country has attained in everything from high-end electric vehicles to low-end T-shirts.

For the first 11 months of the year, China’s exports increased 5.4% from the year-earlier period to $3.4 trillion, while the country’s imports declined 0.6% over that same stretch to $2.3 trillion. That brought the country’s trade surplus this year to $1.08 trillion, China’s General Administration of Customs said Monday.

That remarkable figure, never before seen in recorded economic history, is the culmination of decades of industrial policies and human industriousness that helped China emerge from a poor agrarian economy in the late 1970s to become the world’s second-largest economy.

China established itself as a maker of cheap wigs, sneakers and Christmas lights in the 1980s and 1990s, earning a moniker as the world’s factory floor. But that was just the beginning. In the years since, China has aggressively built on this foundation, climbing the ladder into higher-value goods and making itself an indispensable cog in global supply chains spanning technology, transport, medicine and consumer goods.

In recent years, its leading-edge companies have established themselves as dominant players in solar panels, electric vehicles and the semiconductors that power everyday household items.

China’s industrial heft has long been well-known to its trading partners, becoming a central point of contention in its relations with the world. Last year, its trade surplus rose to a record $993 billion. Still, topping the $1 trillion milestone throws the magnitude of China’s export dominance into even starker relief and is likely to draw more attention to the growing imbalances.

China’s overall exports continued to surge in spite of rising tariffs from the U.S., the world’s largest economy. Upon his return to office in January, President Trump wasted little time in ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese imports, at one point sending them to more than 100%.

Though the U.S. later lowered the tariffs, they remain high. Average tariffs on Chinese imports are currently around 37%, according to the Washington-based Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Far from crimping exports, China has redirected its outbound shipments to other destinations. So far this year, Chinese exports to Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America have surged by 26%, 14% and 7.1% respectively.

Source: msn