Chinese goods pour into Africa, widening trade gap to record US$102 billion amid US pressure
Data points to growing African trade deficit as Trump imposes tariffs, and African demand for manufactured goods and commodity price spikes
China ramped up its exports to Africa last year, widening its trade surplus with the continent by 64.5 per cent to a record US$102 billion, according to Chinese customs figures.
China is deepening trade with Africa to counter escalating tensions with Washington following US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose higher tariffs on imports of Chinese goods, a move that has seen Beijing retaliate with a series of duties and non-tariff measures.
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Lauren Johnston, a China-Africa specialist and senior research fellow at the AustChina Institute, said the sharp increase in China-Africa trade might be driven by pressure on China’s exports to other regions.
In particular, tensions with the United States, the world’s largest importer, were propelling Chinese firms to find new export markets, she said.
“Since Africa is the market with the most latent demand for many of China’s manufactured goods, it’s an obvious target,” Johnston said, adding that Chinese firms with a presence on the continent might even be responsible for a significant share of the imports.
She noted that this further pointed to the importance of African economies as a global source of growth, particularly as East Asia’s “fast-growth catch-up era” had matured.
Johnston said that some of the Chinese exports were also likely to reflect “intensive” imports of capital goods such as heavy machinery and industrial equipment that were needed but not produced in African economies.