From Bloomberg via The Japan Times, August 27:
Africa has become a new hotspot for Chinese exports as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs redraw trade for the world’s biggest manufacturing nation.
With a 25% on-year jump to $122 billion, growth in sales to the continent of 1.5 billion people has far outpaced other major markets this year while orders from the U.S. slumped. China’s exports to Africa so far in 2025 are more than in the whole of 2020 and on track to exceed $200 billion for the first time.
Although the trading relationship shows no sign of becoming less lopsided, with China running a far wider surplus with Africa than last year, Beijing is cracking open its domestic market while seizing on the chance to meet the continent’s infrastructure needs.
"Chinese exporters have done a genuinely impressive job of diversifying into emerging markets in recent years, including in Africa,” said Christopher Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal Dragonomics. "The weaker yuan this year has probably also made Chinese exports more competitive in African countries.”
The trade war has supercharged a boom that was years in the making, spearheaded by President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative unveiled in 2013. And as Chinese companies snapped up contracts to build everything from railways to industrial parks across the continent, the demand for the machinery and materials to complete these projects followed this year.
Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt are the biggest African buyers of Chinese products. Construction machinery was among China’s fastest growing exports to Africa in the first seven months, surging 63% year on year.
Shipments of passenger cars more than doubled from a year earlier and some steel products expanded in high double digits. At the same time, Africa’s share of China’s total exports remains modest at about 6%, roughly half the level for the U.S.
Some goods destined for the U.S. are possibly being diverted through Africa, according to Gavekal’s Beddor, a tactic known as transshipment....
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