The record achieved by China in its trade surplus of 2025, which jumped 20% compared to 2024, had a significant boost from Latin America, with purchases from the Asian giant that increased in the last year amid tensions with the United States over the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.
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Trade between these two countries will be affected in 2026 by the tariffs that Mexico approved for more than 1,400 products from China and other nations with which it does not have a free trade agreement. The landscape was not the same in Brazil, which showed a 2% drop between January and November, according to Chinese Customs data. These are two partners in the BRICS bloc that announced in mid-2025, amid a diplomatic crisis between Brasilia and Washington, that they would deepen their ties. The increase was noticeable in the case of Chile, which in 2025 imported goods for US$ 26,435, almost 25% more than in 2024, according to the report of the Chilean Central Bank. For its part, Argentina was a real springboard for the Chinese surplus. Between January and November, the South American country bought goods from China for US$ 16.432 million, a year-on-year increase of 57.1%, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec). The largest percentage increase was in the automotive vehicles category, with 337%. Peru, where President Xi Jinping inaugurated a at the end of 2024 a megaport with a majority of Chinese capital, also showed a substantial increase. Between January and November 2025, Chinese imports reached US$14.9 billion, a jump of 21% over the same period of the previous year, according to a report by the Peruvian National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. “China responds with its strength” to US tariffs, economist Hernán Letcher, director of the Center for Argentine Political Economy, told CNN. For the analyst, Washington tried to resolve the trade imbalance with that policy, but China “has been efficient in its strategy of building itself as the hegemonic country, sustained not from the military.” “Argentina’s case is striking. The Government (of President Javier Milei) committed itself and echoes the recurring request of (Treasury Secretary Scott) Bessent and Trump, in terms of discourse, to displace China. But the truth is that the process is the opposite,” he commented.You can also read: Chinese exports to the US fall nearly 20% in 2025 marked by the trade war
However, Lula da Silva’s government, close to Xi, showed a setback in its purchases. For Letcher, the dynamism of imports “is more related to the development of the activity itself than anything else,” and with the agreements that can be implemented. “Perhaps it’s not so much in geopolitical terms: if the economy grows, more imports are expected, otherwise, not,” he pointed out.
In its outlook for 2026, the analyst says that “the million-dollar question” is how the United States will act, which has been more assertive in the region and seeks to contain Beijing’s presence. “I imagine that China is going to try to sustain what has happened over the past year: maintain the constant increase in its exports. It will try to buy time without entering into conflict, because its business is to prevail in commercial matters. There should be a reaction from the US in that aspect, it will try to thwart it, we have to look at it closely,” he said.
