So much “winning.” How can you stand it?

Draconian US tariffs and pressure on America’s allies (who in many cases didn’t need to be convinced, menaced as their domestic industries are by tidal waves of low-cost Chinese production) to assist Washington in curbing Beijing’s unfair trade practices, were supposed to throw sand in the gears of the export machine propping up Xi Jinping’s otherwise struggling economy. Alas.

Data released Monday showed China notched a $590 billion trade surplus during the first half of 2025, when exports exceeded $1.8 trillion, a record for the first six months of a calendar year. The figures came just hours ahead of the Q2 GDP tally, which is expected to show the Chinese economy expanded at a better-than-5% clip from April through June, with the real growth figure flattered for a ninth quarter by the deflator.

Exports in June were apparently bolstered by Donald Trump’s latest can-kicking exercise. Chinese exporters and importers around the world likely rushed to get product ahead of next month’s new deadline for a bilateral trade deal between the world’s two largest economies. Shipments abroad rose nearly 6% YoY last month, Xi’s pet statisticians said. Economists expected a 5% advance, give or take.

Imports showed a slight increase versus the same month a year ago. The 1.1% gain was indicative of still-sluggish domestic demand even as it was the first advance of 2025.

Exports to the US were down more than 16% in June versus June of 2024. That was less than half the size of May’s decline and shallower than April’s too. The drop would’ve been significantly more pronounced were it not for the Geneva “truce.”

Shipments to regional economies (i.e., in southeast Asia) jumped 17%, while exports to Europe rose more than 7.5%. So, China’s making up the difference by shipping more goods to countries other than America, countries which, were it not for Trump’s bullying, might be more amenable to assisting The White House’s efforts to throttle Xi’s growth engine.

The analyst color around these numbers was so predictable as to make one wonder how it’s possible that people make as much as they do to state the obvious. That setup’s even sillier when you consider how often the obvious turns out to be wrong.

Long story short, people who make many multiples of the median income in their respective countries and locales concluded Monday that front-loading ahead of next month’s Trump deadline, as well as stepped-up shipments to countries in Xi’s would-be sphere of influence, were a boon to Chinese exports last month.

The same brilliant strategists reckoned that the fate of China’s export machine in the back half of 2025 hinges on i) the outcome of trade negotiations (including The White House’s approach to Vietnam, where Trump’s playing a hopeless game of Whac-a-Mole with transshipped Chinese product) and ii) how much more blood Chinese industries can squeeze from the proverbial stone when it comes to leveraging price cuts to commandeer additional market share globally.

Oh, and rare earth shipments from China appeared to jump the most ever in June, likely a consequence of Trump’s incessant badgering.