plate 170 · 2025 data

China now buys more from Brazil than from Germany

China's goods imports by origin, US$ billion, 2014–2025, as reported by China to UN Comtrade.

Trade and money rewired
  1. 1. Mexico, not China, now sells America the most goods
  2. 2. China's ASEAN trade is now almost double its US trade
  3. 3. Central banks now hold more gold than Treasuries or euros
  4. 4. China now pays the world mostly in yuan
  5. 5. Migrants now send home four times all foreign aid
  6. 6. Tether now holds more US Treasuries than the UAE
  7. 7. Developing countries' interest bill has nearly tripled since 2010
  8. 8. America's duty-free parcels grew almost tenfold in nine years
  9. 9. Poles edge past the Japanese in income per person
  10. 10. In dollars, Nigeria's economy has more than halved since 2014
  11. 11. Argentina's monthly inflation fell from 25.5% to 1.9%
  12. 12. Guyana now produces more per person than America
  13. 13. Mexico's factories now outproduce Britain's and France's
  14. 14. Ukraine received four times the aid of any other country
  15. 15. The UAE sold more goods abroad than France in 2025
  16. 16. Singapore now draws twice as much foreign investment as China
  17. 17. The EU now buys more US gas than Russian gas
  18. 18. Malaysia again sells more to America than to China
  19. 19. 22 governments now owe more than a year's national output
  20. 20. Brazil mines 93% of the world's niobium
  21. 21. More Vietnamese now work in industry than on farms
  22. 22. Money sent home to Guatemala nearly quadrupled in ten years
  23. 23. In purchasing power, Russia's economy is now bigger than Japan's
  24. 24. Indonesia set to use more palm oil than it exports
  25. 25. Factories now make more of Cambodia's economy than China's
  26. 26. China now buys more from Brazil than from Germany
  27. 27. Kazakhstan now sells Russia more than Germany does
  28. 28. China fell to third among America's suppliers in 2025
$116.2bn

China's imports from Brazil in 2025, up from $51.7bn in 2014. Brazil moved ahead of Germany in 2023.

$92.9bn

China's imports from Germany in 2025, down from a peak of $119.5bn in 2021.

25%

How much more China bought from Brazil than from Germany in 2025, by China's own customs figures.

the numbers & method
China now buys more from Brazil than from Germany. Source: UN Comtrade: China, goods imports by partner (HS, annual), 2025.
YearBrazil (bn)Germany (bn)Australia (bn)United States (bn)
201451.7105.097.6160.1
201544.187.673.5148.7
201645.986.170.9135.1
201758.996.995.0154.4
201877.6106.3105.8156.0
201980.0105.1121.3123.8
202085.5105.1117.7136.3
2021109.9119.5162.9179.8
2022109.5111.4142.1179.0
2023122.5106.2155.6165.2
2024116.194.8140.8164.6
2025116.292.9128.1141.2

Claim types Fact

UN Comtrade, annual merchandise trade, HS, all commodities (TOTAL), reporter China (156), flow imports, partners Brazil, Germany, Australia and the United States, customs code C00, mode of transport all; primary value in current US$, read from the UN Comtrade API (comtradeapi.un.org) through the progrss data vault. China records imports by country of origin. Brazil vs Germany (US$ bn): 2021 109.9 vs 119.5; 2022 109.5 vs 111.4; 2023 122.5 vs 106.2 (first year above); 2025 116.2 vs 92.9. Exporters' own figures differ: as reported by Brazil, its exports to China (US$ 100.0bn) first passed Germany's reported exports to China (US$ 92.2bn) only in 2025. The 25% gap and the change since 2014 are progrss calculations. Values are in current dollars, not adjusted for prices.