trade

European farmers are protesting against the EU-Mercosur deal.

That is as signing has been postponed until January, due to disagreements in Europe.

The European-South American deal, planned for more than 25 years, would create the world’s largest free-trade zone.

So, why is there division?

Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

Pieter Cleppe – Editor-in-chief at BrusselsReport.eu
Ciaran Mullooly – Member of the European Parliament for the Independent Ireland group
Gustavo Ribeiro – Founder and editor-in-chief of the Brazilian Report online newspaper

Phillip Danault’s decreasing role with the Kings led to the veteran two-way center getting an opportunity for a fresh start in a familiar setting after being traded to the Montreal Canadiens on Friday.

The Kings acquired a second-round draft pick while also freeing up salary-cap space and ice time for other players in the trade reached just before the NHL holiday roster freeze on Saturday. The draft pick the Kings landed is one Montreal previously acquired in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Prompting the move for the Kings was the development of Quinton Byfield and Alex Laferriere, and the offseason additions of Joel Armia and Corey Perry. General manager Ken Holland also expressed a desire to provide more playing time for Alex Turcotte and second-year center Samuel Helenius.

“Phil’s role changed here, got reduced on the penalty killing and on the power play. It’s been a bit of a struggle here offensively for Phil since the start of the year,” Holland said on a video call.

“So I found a trading partner, and I think it’s going to be good for Phil,” he added. “He gets to go back to a city where he had a lot of success. And we get a second-round pick and obviously we see some cap space to use going forward.”

Danault was in the fifth season of a six-year, $33 million contract he signed with the Kings in the summer of 2021.

The 32-year-old Danault, who topped 40 points in each of his first four seasons with the Kings, hasn’t scored a goal and has just five assists in 30 games, while missing the past four with an illness. Holland said he consulted with Danault and his agent in opening trade discussions before landing what he believed was the best offer.

Danault, who is from Victoriaville, Quebec, returns to Montreal where he spent six seasons and established himself as one of the league’s better defensive-minded forwards.

He had 54 goals and 194 points in 360 games with Montreal over a stretch that ended with the Canadiens reaching the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, which they lost in five games to Tampa Bay.

Danault was selected in the first round of the 2011 draft by Chicago, and spent his first two seasons with the Blackhawks before being traded to Montreal.

The Canadiens add a 12-year veteran to a young, up-and-coming team that reached the playoffs last season for the first time since 2021, and is in the thick of a tightly packed race. At 18-12-4, Montreal enters Saturday eighth in the Eastern Conference standings with eight points separating the last-place Blue Jackets and second-place Washington Capitals.

The Kings are in a similar situation in the West. At 15-10-9, they’re seventh, with eight points separating the 10th-place St. Louis Blues and fourth-place Vegas Golden Knights.

The trade comes after the Kings ended an 0-2-2 skid with a 2-1 win at Tampa Bay on Thursday night.

Holland acknowledged the Kings need more offensive production — they rank 28th in the NHL, averaging 2.56 goals per game. But he’s pleased with the team’s defensive play and goaltending, with the Kings ranking third in giving up 2.5 goals per outing.

“Certainly we need more goals,” he said, noting the Kings are a combined 5-9 in overtime and shootouts. “I’m hoping that some of the people that have scored in the past will start to score here going forward.”

Holland also backed third-year coach Jim Hiller by noting how the Kings are no different than a number of NHL teams approaching the midway point of the season.

“If we’re in a malaise, then 25 teams are in a malaise. Like, the whole league’s packed together,” Holland said. “Jim’s done a good job, and our team is playing very structured and competes every night.”

EU delays Mercosur trade deal until January amid farmer protests and opposition from France and Italy.

The European Union has delayed a massive free-trade deal with South American countries amid protests by EU farmers and as last-minute opposition by France and Italy threatened to derail the agreement.

European Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho confirmed on Thursday that the signing of the trade pact between the EU and South American bloc Mercosur will be postponed until January, further delaying a deal that had taken some 25 years to negotiate.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was expected to travel to Brazil on Saturday to sign the deal, but needed the backing of a broad majority of EU members to do so.

The Associated Press news agency reported that an agreement to delay was reached between von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – who spoke at an EU summit on Thursday – on the condition that Italy would vote in favour of the agreement in January.

French President Emmanuel Macron had also pushed back against the deal as he arrived for Thursday’s summit in Brussels, calling for further concessions and more discussions in January.

Macron said he has been in discussions with Italian, Polish, Belgian, Austrian and Irish colleagues, among others, about delaying the signing.

“Farmers already face an enormous amount of challenges,″ the French leader said.

The trade pact with Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay would be the EU’s largest in terms of tariff cuts.

But critics of the deal, notably France and Italy, fear an influx of cheap commodities that could hurt European farmers, while Germany, Spain and Nordic countries say it will boost exports hit by United States tariffs and reduce reliance on China by securing access to key minerals.

Brazil’s President Lula says Italy’s PM Meloni asked for ‘patience’

The EU-Mercosur agreement would create the world’s biggest free-trade area and help the 27-nation European bloc to export more vehicles, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America at a time of global trade tensions.

Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said Germany, Spain and the Nordic countries were “all lobbying hard in favour of this deal”. But ranged against them were the French and Italian governments because of concerns in their powerful farming sectors.

“Their worry being that their products, such as poultry and beef, could be undercut by far cheaper imports from the Mercosur countries,” Kane said.

“So no signing in December. The suggestion being maybe there will be a signing in mid-January,” he added.

“But there must now be a question about what might happen between now and mid-January, given the powerful forces ranged against each other in this debate,” he added.

Mercosur nations were notified of the move, a European Commission spokeswoman said, and while initially reacting with a now-or-never ultimatum to its EU partners, Brazil opened the door on Thursday to delaying the deal’s signature to allow time to win over the holdouts.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Italy’s Meloni had asked him for “patience” and had indicated that Italy would eventually be ready for the agreement.

The decision to delay also came hours after farmers in tractors blocked roads and set off fireworks in Brussels to protest the deal, prompting police to respond with tear gas and water cannon.

Protesting farmers – some travelling to the Belgian capital from as far away as Spain and Poland – brought potatoes and eggs to throw and waged a furious back-and-forth with police while demonstrators burned tyres and a faux wooden coffin bearing the word “agriculture”.

The European Parliament evacuated some staff due to damage caused by protesters.

The FTC had accused the grocery delivery giant of charging fees to consumers after promising ‘free delivery’.

Instacart has agreed to pay $60m in refunds to settle allegations brought by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that the online grocery delivery platform deceived consumers about its membership programme and free delivery offers.

According to court documents filed in San Francisco on Thursday, Instacart’s offer of “free delivery” for first orders was illusory because shoppers were charged other fees, the FTC alleged.

The agency also accused Instacart of failing to adequately notify shoppers that their free trials of its Instacart+ subscription service would convert to paid memberships and of misleading consumers about its refund policy.

“The FTC is focused on monitoring online delivery services to ensure that competitors are transparently competing on price and delivery terms,” said Christopher Mufarrige, who leads the FTC’s consumer protection work.

An Instacart spokesperson said the company flatly denies any allegations of wrongdoing, but that the settlement allows the company to focus on shoppers and retailers.

“We provide straightforward marketing, transparent pricing and fees, clear terms, easy cancellation, and generous refund policies — all in full compliance with the law and exceeding industry norms,” the spokesperson said.

The shopping platform is currently under scrutiny after a recent study by nonprofit groups found that individual shoppers simultaneously received different prices for the same items at the same stores.

The FTC is investigating the company and has demanded information about Instacart’s Eversight pricing tool, the news agency Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Instacart has said that retailers are responsible for setting prices, and that pricing tests run through Eversight are random and not based on user data.

Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, an economic think tank, criticised the grocery platform for using artificial intelligence (AI) to tweak its prices.

“At a time when families are being squeezed by the highest grocery costs in a generation, Instacart chose to run AI experiments that are quietly driving prices higher,” Owens said in written remarks provided to Al Jazeera.

She also called on the administration of US President Donald Trump to take action to prevent such price manipulation from continuing into the future.

“While the FTC’s investigation is welcome news, it must be followed with meaningful action that ends these exploitative pricing schemes and protects consumers,” Owens said. “Instacart must face consequences for their algorithmic price gouging, not just a slap on the wrist.”

On Wall Street, Instacart’s stock is taking a hit on the heels of the settlement, finishing out the day down 1.5 percent.

Thousands protest as EU leaders clash over trade pact farmers fear will flood Europe with cheaper South American goods.

Hundreds of tractors have clogged the streets of Brussels as farmers converged on the Belgian capital to protest against the contentious trade agreement between the European Union and South American nations they say will destroy their livelihoods.

The demonstrations erupted on Thursday as EU leaders gathered for a summit where the fate of the Mercosur deal hung in the balance. More than 150 tractors blocked central Brussels, with an estimated 10,000 protesters expected in the European quarter, according to farm lobby Copa-Cogeca.

It made for a twin-tracked day of febrile tension outside and inside at the EU summit as leaders were perhaps more focused on a vote to determine whether they are able to use nearly $200bn in frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine over the next two years.

Outside the gilded halls on the streets, farmers hurled potatoes and eggs at police, set off fireworks and firecrackers, and brought traffic to a standstill.

Authorities responded with tear gas and water cannon, setting up roadblocks and closing tunnels around the city. One tractor displayed a sign reading: “Why import sugar from the other side of the world when we produce the best right here?”

“We’re here to say no to Mercosur,” Belgian dairy farmer Maxime Mabille said, accusing European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen of trying to “force the deal through” like “Europe has become a dictatorship”.

Protesters fear an influx of cheaper agricultural products from Brazil and neighbouring countries would undercut European producers. Their concerns centre on beef, sugar, rice, honey and soya beans from South American competitors facing less stringent regulations, particularly on pesticides banned in the EU.

“We’ve been protesting since 2024 in France, in Belgium and elsewhere,” said Florian Poncelet of Belgian farm union FJA. “We’d like to be finally listened to.”

France and Italy now lead opposition to the deal, with President Emmanuel Macron declaring that “we are not ready” and the agreement “cannot be signed” in its current form.

France has coordinated with Poland, Belgium, Austria and Ireland to force a postponement, giving critics sufficient votes within the European Council to potentially block the pact.

However, Germany and Spain are pushing hard for approval. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that decisions “must be made now” if the EU wants to “remain credible in global trade policy”, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez argued the deal would give Europe “geo-economic and geopolitical weight” against adversaries.

The agreement, 25 years in the making, would create the world’s largest free-trade area covering 780 million people and a quarter of global gross domestic product (GDP).

Supporters say it offers a counterweight to China and would boost European exports of vehicles, machinery and wines amid rising US tariffs.

Despite provisional safeguards negotiated on Wednesday to cap sensitive imports, opposition has intensified. Von der Leyen remains determined to travel to Brazil this weekend to sign the deal, but needs backing from at least two-thirds of EU nations.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva issued an ultimatum on Wednesday, warning that Saturday represents a “now or never” moment, adding that “Brazil won’t make any more agreements while I’m president” if the deal fails.

Brazilian president says it is now or never after Italy joins France in saying it is not ready to sign trade deal.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has warned he may abandon a long-awaited trade deal between members of the South American bloc Mercosur and the European Union after key countries sought a delay.

The Brazilian leader issued the threat on Wednesday after Italy joined fellow heavyweight France in saying it was not ready to commit to the pact to create the world’s biggest free-trade area.

The EU had expected its 27 member states to approve the deal in time for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil to sign an agreement with the host, along with Mercosur partners Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, on Saturday.

“I’ve already warned them: If we don’t do it now, Brazil won’t make any more agreements while I’m president,” Lula told a cabinet meeting.

“We have given in on everything that diplomacy could reasonably concede.”

‘Premature’ to sign: Meloni

The deal, more than two decades in the making, has been keenly backed by economic powerhouse Germany, along with Spain and the Nordic countries, amid rising Chinese competition and recent United States tariffs, which have increased the incentive to diversify trade.

It would allow the EU to export more vehicles, machinery, spirits and wine to Latin America, and more beef, sugar, rice, honey and soya beans to flow in the opposite direction.

France, eager to protect its agriculture industry, had already called for a delay on a vote to approve the deal, and gained the support necessary to potentially block the agreement when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday that Rome was also not ready.

“It would be premature to sign the deal in the coming days,” she told parliament, saying that some of the safeguards Italy is seeking on behalf of farmers were yet to be finalised.

She said Italy did not seek to block the deal altogether, and was “very confident” that her government’s concerns would have been addressed to allow it to be signed early next year,

French President Emmanuel Macron told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that his government would “firmly oppose” any attempts to force through the deal.

Hungary and Poland are also lukewarm on the agreement.

By contrast, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday he would push “intensively” for the bloc to approve the deal by the year’s end, in what he described as a test of the EU’s “ability to act”.

EU reaches agreement on agricultural safeguards

In an effort to allay some of the concerns, the EU struck a provisional deal on Wednesday to set tighter controls on imports of farm products, amid a background of farmer protests against the deal.

It determined the trigger for launching an investigation into such imports if import volumes rose by more than 8 percent per year or prices fell by that amount in one or more EU members.

EU leaders will discuss the matter at a Brussels summit on Thursday, a commission spokesman said.

Paris says EU member states cannot vote on the trade agreement in its current state.

France has urged the European Union to postpone a vote on a trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur, saying conditions are not yet in place for an agreement.

In a statement from Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office on Sunday, Paris said that EU member states cannot vote on the trade agreement in its current state.

“France asks that the deadlines be pushed back to continue work on getting the legitimate measures of protection for our European agriculture,” the statement added.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is due to visit Brazil on Monday to finalise the landmark trade pact, which the 27-member union has been negotiating with the Mercosur trade bloc for more than 20 years. The agreement is being negotiated with four Mercosur members: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

But the Commission first has to get the approval of the EU member states before signing any trade deal, and Paris has made its objection to the deal with the Mercosur countries clear.

“Given a Mercosur summit is announced for December 20, it is clear in this context that the conditions have not been met for any vote [by states] on authorising the signing of the agreement,” the statement from Paris said.

Earlier on Sunday, in an interview with the German financial daily Handelsblatt, French Minister of the Economy and Finance Roland Lescure also said that the treaty as it stands, “is simply not acceptable”.

He added that securing robust and effective safeguard clauses was one of the three key conditions France set before giving its blessing to the agreement.

He said the other key points were ensuring that the same production standards that EU farmers face are implemented and proper “import controls” are established.

Farmers in France and some other European countries say the deal will create unfair competition due to less stringent standards, which they fear could destabilise already fragile European food sectors.

“Until we have obtained assurances on these three points, France will not accept the agreement,” said Lescure.

European nations are expected to vote on the trade pact between Tuesday and Friday, according to EU sources.

The European Parliament will also vote on Tuesday on safeguards to reassure farmers, particularly those in France, who are fiercely opposed to the treaty.

The EU is Mercosur’s second-largest trading partner in goods, with exports of 57 billion euros ($67bn) in 2024, according to the European Commission.

The EU is also the biggest foreign investor in Mercosur, with a stock of 390 billion euros ($458bn) in 2023.

If a trade deal is approved later this month, the EU-Mercosur agreement could create a common market of 722 million people.

Dec. 12 (UPI) — Costa Rica and Israel finalized a free trade agreement this week that eliminates more than 90% of tariffs between the two countries, mainly on agricultural and industrial products. The deal also is expected to improve prospects for trade in services, technology and specialized investment.

Costa Rica’s Ministry of Foreign Trade said the pact with Israel — which it described as a leader in innovation, cybersecurity, clean technologies, agrotechnology, digital services and semiconductors — creates a favorable framework for expanding trade, attracting capital and strengthening bilateral production chains.

The agreement must be ratified by Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly, a process expected to be contentious due to criticism from pro-Palestinian groups calling for a freeze on ties with Israel.

Activist groups collected about 12,000 signatures from Costa Ricans and delivered them to the government in November, urging it to halt the agreement on the grounds that Costa Rica would become “complicit” in genocide, local outlet Semanario Universidad reported.

Although current trade between the two countries — estimated at about $60 million — represents only a small share of each nation’s total exports, Costa Rican business groups welcomed the agreement, saying it will allow the country to strengthen specific niches where it has a competitive advantage or needs key inputs.

“In the current context, it is very important to diversify the sources of investment and the destinations of our products, particularly in a high-potential market such as the Middle East,” Ronald Lachner, president of the Association of Free Zone Companies of Costa Rica, told El Observador.

Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minister Manuel Tovar said the agreement “represents a strategic opportunity to position Costa Rica as a competitive supplier in high-technology sectors, quality agribusiness and specialized services.”

Israeli Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat said Costa Rica is “a natural trading partner for Israel — an advanced OECD country with a deep commitment to free and open trade.”

“The free trade agreement is expected to strengthen the growth trend in Israeli exports, deepen business cooperation and help reduce the cost of living in Israel by lowering import prices,” he said. “The agreement reflects the policy we are pursuing: opening new markets, diversifying trade destinations and strengthening the engines of growth of the Israeli economy.”

With the agreement’s entry into force, Costa Rican exports are expected to reach between $50 million and $60 million in 2026, driven by products such as green coffee, pineapple, honey, kosher and halal meat, medical devices, advanced manufacturing and digital services.

Beyond the exchange of goods, the free trade agreement aligns with Costa Rica’s national strategy to attract investment in high-technology sectors. Israeli investment in Costa Rica has shown a sharp increase, rising from $1 million in 2023 to nearly $20 million in 2024.

The scope of the agreement goes beyond tariff reductions. It includes plans to open a Trade and Innovation Office in Jerusalem in early 2026. The office is intended to facilitate joint projects in semiconductors, medical technologies, advanced agriculture and specialized tourism.

Israel’s ambassador to Costa Rica, Michal Gur-Aryeh, said the two economies are complementary.

“Israeli technology will contribute to Costa Rican productivity, making it more profitable and competitive, while Israel will gain access to Costa Rica’s wide range of products,” she said.

Incident in November latest reported instance of Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive maritime tactics.

United States forces raided a cargo ship travelling from China to Iran last month, according to the Wall Street Journal, in the latest reported instance of increasingly aggressive maritime tactics by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Unnamed officials told the newspaper that US military personnel boarded the ship several hundred miles from Sri Lanka, according to the report on Friday. It was the first time in several years US forces had intercepted cargo travelling from China to Iran, according to the newspaper.

The operation took place in November, weeks before US forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela earlier this week, citing sanctions violations. It was another action Washington has not taken in years.

US Indo-Pacific Command did not immediately confirm the report. An official told the newspaper that they seized material “potentially useful for Iran’s conventional weapons”. However, the official noted the seized items were dual-use, and could have both military and civilian applications.

Officials said the ship was allowed to proceed following the interdiction, which involved special operation forces.

Iran remains under heavy US sanctions. Neither Iran nor China immediately responded to the report, although Beijing, a key trading partner with Tehran, has regularly called the US sanctions illegal.

Earlier in the day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun condemned the seizure of the oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, which was brought to a port in Texas on Friday.

The action came amid a wider military pressure campaign against Venezuela, which Caracas has charged is aimed at toppling the government of leader Nicolas Maduro.

Beijing “opposes unilateral illicit sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law or authorisation of the UN Security Council, and the abuse of sanctions”, Guo said.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday the Trump administration would not rule out future seizures of vessels near Venezuela.

China’s trade surplus – the difference between the value of goods it imports and exports – has hit $1 trillion for the first time, a significant yardstick in the country’s role as “factory of the world”, making everything from socks and curtains to electric cars.

For the first 11 months of this year, China’s exports rose to $3.4 trillion while its imports declined slightly to $2.3 trillion. That brought the country’s trade surplus to about $1 trillion, China’s General Administration of Customs said on Monday.

Shipments overseas from China have boomed despite US President Donald Trump’s global trade war, largely consisting of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on most countries, which were launched earlier this year in a bid to reduce US trade deficits.

But China, which was initially hit with US tariffs of 145 percent before they were lowered to allow for trade talks, has emerged largely unscathed from the standoff by stepping up shipments to markets outside the US.

Following Trump’s 2024 election win, China began diversifying its export market away from the US in exchange for closer ties with Southeast Asia and the European Union. It also established new production hubs, outside of China, for low-tariff access.

Why does China have such a large trade surplus?

China’s exports returned to growth last month following an unexpected dip in October, rising to 5.9 percent more than one year earlier and far outpacing a 1.9 percent rise in imports, according to China’s General Administration of Customs.

China’s goods surplus for the first 11 months of 2025 was up 21.7 percent from the same period last year. Most of the surge was driven by strong growth in high-tech goods, which outpaced the increase in overall exports by 5.4 percent.

Auto exports, especially for electric vehicles, rallied as Chinese firms muscled in on Japanese and German market share. Total car shipments jumped by more than one million to approximately 6.5 million units this year, according to data from China-based consultancy Automobility.

And although China still trails US leaders like Nvidia in advanced chips, it is becoming dominant in the production of semiconductors (used in everything from electric cars to medical devices). Semiconductor exports rose by 24.7 percent over the period.

China’s technological advances have also boosted shipbuilding, where exports rose 26.8 percent compared with the same period in 2024.

So, given the hostile global trade backdrop, how has China achieved this?

Rerouting and diversifying

Though Washington has lowered tariffs on Chinese imports in recent months, they remain high. Average import duties on Chinese goods currently stand at 37 percent. For this reason, Chinese shipments to the US have dropped by 29 percent year-on-year to November.

Some Chinese companies have shifted their production facilities to Southeast Asia, Mexico and Africa, enabling them to bypass Trump’s tariffs on goods arriving directly from China. Despite this, overall trade between the two countries remains down.

In the first eight months of this year, for instance, the US imported roughly $23bn in goods from Indonesia, an increase of nearly one-third on the same period in 2024. It is widely understood that the rise is down to Chinese goods being redirected via Indonesia.

“The role of trade rerouting in offsetting the drag from US tariffs still appears to be increasing,” Zichun Huang, an economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note to clients on Monday. Huang added that “exports to Vietnam, the top [Chinese] rerouting hub, continued to grow rapidly.”

As trade with the US has slackened, China has doubled down on developing ties with other major trading partners. That includes a 15 percent surge in Chinese shipments to the EU, compared with the year before, and an 8.2 percent rise in exports to countries in Southeast Asia.

Weaker currency

Another reason for China’s trading success is that its currency has been cheap, compared with others, in recent years. A lower renminbi makes exports relatively inexpensive to produce, and imports relatively expensive to consume.

China maintains a “managed float” of the renminbi – meaning the central bank intervenes in foreign exchange markets to maintain its value against other currencies – with the aim of keeping the price stable.

For years, many economists have argued that China’s currency is undervalued. In their view, that gives exporters a competitive edge by boosting the appeal of cheap Chinese products at the expense of other countries, leading to large imbalances in trade.

Indeed, taking into account global inflationary dynamics, the real effective exchange rate – a measure of the competitiveness of Chinese goods – is actually at its weakest level since 2012.

How has China got here?

China’s eye-watering $1 trillion trade surplus – never before recorded in economic history – is the culmination of decades of industrial policies that have enabled China to emerge from a low-income agrarian society in the 1970s to become the world’s second-largest economy today.

China established itself as a dependable producer of low-cost manufactured goods, like T-shirts and shoes, in the 1980s. Since then, it has climbed the industrial ladder to higher-value goods, such as electric vehicles and solar panels.

By far its largest sector in terms of exports is electronics. China exported a total of more than $1 trillion-worth of electronic goods around the world in 2024. This follows the pattern of other industrialised countries by starting with simple, labour-intensive goods and then moving into more complex sectors. However, China has done so with unusual scale and speed to cement its dominance across numerous global supply chains.

It also dominates trade in rare-earth metals, which are crucial for the manufacture of a wide range of goods from smartphones to fighter jets.

Twelve of the 17 rare earth metals on the periodic table can be found in China, and it mines between 60 percent and 70 percent of the world’s rare-earth resources. It also carries out 90 percent of the processing of these metals for commercial use.

For historical context, China’s trade surplus in factory goods is larger as a share of its economy than the US ran in the years after World War II, when most other manufacturing nations were emerging from the ruins of war.

How are other countries responding to China’s expanding dominance?

Many are looking for ways to redress the balance.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited China last week, warned the EU may take “strong measures”, including imposing higher tariffs, should Beijing fail to address the imbalance.

The EU already imposes additional tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), which range from 17 percent to 35.3 percent, for example, on top of its existing 10 percent import duty.
Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, arrived in China for a two-day trip on Monday this week, becoming the latest senior European official to visit for talks amid the country’s rapidly expanding goods trade with Europe.

Before his trip, Wadephul said he planned to raise the issue of tariffs with his Chinese counterparts, particularly those involving rare earths, in addition to concerns about industrial “overcapacities”, which he said are distorting global prices for industrial goods.

Will China’s exports continue to grow?

Despite efforts by the US and other wealthy countries to diversify away from China, few economists expect the country’s broad-based trade momentum to slow anytime soon.

Economists at Morgan Stanley predict China’s share of global goods exports will reach 16.5 percent by the end of the decade, up from 15 percent now, reflecting China’s ability to adapt quickly to shifting global demand.

More immediately, China’s strong trade performance means the annual growth target – set by Beijing to guide economic policy and to align regional governments – of about 5 percent is likely to be met.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is planning a $12 billion farm aid package, according to a White House official — a boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their crops while getting hit by rising costs after the president raised tariffs on China as part of a broader trade war.

According to the official, who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of a planned announcement, Trump will unveil the plan Monday afternoon at a White House roundtable with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers and farmers who grow corn, cotton, sorghum, soybeans, rice, cattle, wheat, and potatoes.

Farmers have backed Trump politically, but his aggressive trade policies and frequently changing tariff rates have come under increasing scrutiny because of the impact on the agricultural sector and because of broader consumer worries.

The aid is the administration’s latest effort to defend Trump’s economic stewardship and answer voter angst about rising costs — even as the president has dismissed concerns about affordability as a Democratic “hoax.”

Upwards of $11 billion is set aside for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program, which the White House says will offer one-time payments to farmers for row crops.

Soybeans and sorghum were hit the hardest by the trade dispute with China because more than half of those crops are exported each year with most of the harvest going to China.

The White House says the aid is meant to help farmers who have suffered from trade wars with other nations, inflation, and other “market disruptions.”

The rest of the money will be for farmers who grow crops not covered under the bridge assistance program, according to the White House official. The money is intended to offer certainty to farmers as they market the current harvest, as well as plan for next year’s harvest.

China purchases have been slow

In October, after Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, the White House said Beijing had promised to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of the calendar year, plus 25 million metric tons a year in each of the next three years. Soybean farmers have been hit especially hard by Trump’s trade war with China, which is the world’s largest buyer of soybeans.

China has purchased more than 2.8 million metric tons of soybeans since Trump announced the agreement at the end of October. That’s only about one quarter of what administration officials said China had promised, but Bessent has said China is on track to meet its goal by the end of February.

“These prices haven’t come in, because the Chinese actually used our soybean farmers as pawns in the trade negotiations,” Bessent said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” explaining why a “bridge payment” to farmers was needed.

During his first presidency, Trump also provided aid to farmers amid his trade wars. He gave them more than $22 billion in 2019 and nearly $46 billion in 2020, though that year also included aid related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump has also been under pressure to address soaring beef prices, which have hit records for a number of reasons. Demand for beef has been strong at a time when drought has cut U.S. herds and imports from Mexico are down due to a resurgence in a parasite. Trump has said he would allow for more imports of Argentine beef.

He also had asked the Department of Justice to investigate foreign-owned meat packers he accused of driving up the price of beef, although he has not provided evidence to back his claims.

On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to look at “anti-competitive behavior” in food supply chains — including seed, fertilizer and equipment — and consider taking enforcement actions or developing new regulations.

Kim, Funk and Tang write for the Associated Press. AP writers Michelle L. Price in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Jack Dura in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

Chinese exports climb as exporters reroute shipments to other markets amid slump in shipments to the US.

China’s annual trade surplus in goods has topped $1 trillion for the first time, with plunging exports to the United States amid a tariff war more than compensated for by shipments to other markets, new data shows.

Figures released by China’s General Administration of Customs on Monday showed the trade surplus for the first 11 months of the year hit $1.08 trillion in November, as exports climbed 5.9 percent year-on-year that month, reversing a 1.1 percent decline the month prior.

The leap came despite a continued slump in exports to the US, which fell 28.6 percent to $33.8bn last month, the data showed.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a bitter trade war involving hefty tariffs during the second administration of US President Donald Trump, forcing Chinese exporters to pivot to other markets – although the leaders of the world’s two largest economies agreed to pause the hostilities during a meeting in South Korea in October.

“China’s trade surplus this year has already surpassed last year’s level, and we expect it to widen further next year,” Zichun Huang of Capital Economics wrote in a note.

Huang said the weakness in exports to the US was “more than offset by shipments to other markets”.

Exports were “likely to remain resilient”, Huang added, due to trade rerouting and rising price competitiveness for Chinese goods, as deflation pushed down its real effective exchange rate.

French warnings over surplus

Exports have proven critical to China’s economy as it grapples with a debt crisis in the property sector and sluggish domestic spending, impacting its growth.

But China’s towering trade surplus has rankled leading Western trading partners, with French President Emmanuel Macron the latest to threaten action if the imbalance is not addressed.

Macron, fresh from a state visit to China, in an interview with the French newspaper Les Echos on Sunday, warned that Europe could follow the US in imposing tariffs on Beijing if the surplus were not reduced in the coming months.

Exports to the European Union grew by an annual 14.8 percent last month, while shipments to Australia rose 35.8 percent. Meanwhile, the fast-growing Southeast Asian economies took in 8.2 percent more goods over the same period.

That boosted China’s trade surplus to $111.68bn in November, the highest since June, from $90.07bn recorded the previous month, and above a forecast of $100.2bn.

Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note that November’s rebound of export growth had helped to “mitigate the weak domestic demand”, amid a slowdown in economic momentum being partly driven by weakness in the property sector.

In an indication of China’s weak domestic consumption, new customs data showed that imports rose 1.9 percent on-year in November, less than had been predicted.