China's trade with Africa outracing the rest of world, supplanting North America

This is a transcript, for the video found here:

Bullets:

Chinese exports to the United States are down double digits since the beginning of the year.

But China's exports overall are much higher than expected, as Chinese firms are successfully expanding into new markets.

This is glaringly true of Africa. Bilateral trade between China and Africa is rocketing higher, and doing so in surprising ways.

Chinese exports to Africa are high up in the value chain: advanced machinery, vehicles, electronics, and power generation.

But these products are also falling in price, making them more affordable then ever to Africa's emerging middle class and business sectors.

It is also a de-dollarization story. Chinese banks make trade credit and finance widely available using pools of renminbi. African firms can far more easily access capital in RMB compared to USD, and are refinancing their dollar-denominated debts to the Chinese currency.

Report:

Good morning. The population of Africa is one billion five hundred million, which is more than four times that of the United States. Now Africa is developing, quickly, and China has the entire African market to themselves. That’s true in both directions, now. Chinese companies are now the preferred buyer for Africa’s raw materials, and Chinese companies are now the preferred vendors for Africa’s growing consumer markets. So while Chinese firms are getting locked out of markets in North America, but more than making up for it through their increased trade in Africa.

We’ve done this one before:

It compares the United States and China, country by country, and which is the bigger trade partner. In under 25 years, the map was mostly blue—far more countries did more business with the US, than with China. Now it’s the other way around. In 2000, most countries in Africa did more trade with the US, than with China. Now every single country in Africa except for Lesotho and Swaziland is doing higher trade volumes with China.

And the numbers aren’t close. Algeria once did over 15 times more trade with the US than China. Today China does 4 times as much. Angola does 8 times more trade volume today. There are seventeen pages of country data here. And even the trade data for Australia jump off the page; in 2000, over two times more business with the US than with China; now, Australia does more than 4 times more trade with China:

And trade between China and Africa is massive, and growing across the board, and far faster than in other markets. And the trade is two-way—Africa is crucial as a supplier for raw materials for Chinese manufacturing sectors, and Africa is a massive consumer market. These are year-to-date numbers. Trade between China and the US is down over 20% in 2025, but trade between China and Africa is up 42.5. “Chinese exporters are successfully diversifying into emerging markets.”

The Belt and Road Initiative is a big reason why. The BRI is 12 years old this year, and many of these projects are fully online today, with more coming. In the first six months of this year, another $30 billion in new construction contracts were launched. Last year it was only $6 billion for the first half.

And these data show that China is high up in the value chain, for their exports to Africa. Sales of construction machinery up 63%. Passenger vehicles over 100%. Steel products up big. Solar power up 60. Steel and iron for construction, up 43. Power generation equipment up 25. Here’s the full list. Motorcycles. Trucks and vans. Ships. Batteries. Air conditioning. Computers. Except for “synthetic woven fabrics” and “rubber or plastic footwear”—everything on this list is expensive. It’s capital equipment, and middle-class household:

Chinese brands are going global, and especially in Africa. And they are also diversifying there by country. Nigeria is 11% of China’s exports, and Nigeria and South Africa are BRICS countries. The trade is booming continent wide, though. Over 30 countries in Africa now trade with China tariff-free.

And Africans are benefitting from falling prices. Demand is way up, but in 14 of 18 major categories, prices fell over the year. In North America and Europe, products from China cost more than ever, because of high inflation and high tariffs. But in Africa, they cost less than ever:

Africa is also a de-dollarization story. US dollars are becoming scarce outside the US, because USD are being sucked out of global banking systems abroad to feed the gigantic fiscal deficits back home. That makes dollar funding to finance trade prohibitively expensive in developing markets. But Chinese banks have set up in Africa, and make it easier for companies and countries to do business outside the US dollar. Almost all this trade is done outside the USD or euro. Several countries, including Kenya, want to convert loans in USD to renminbi. Rising interest rates in the US make these dollar loans far more expensive to service, and African banks can far more easily tap into the capital pools of renminbi because that’s how the trade is being done anyway.

Be good.

Resources and links:

Visual Capitalist, China’s Trade Surge Over Time

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/how-china-overtook-u-s-in-global-trade-dominance-2000-2024/

https://maritimeducation.com/5927-2/

Bloomberg, China Pours Exports Into Africa Faster Than Anywhere Else

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-26/china-is-pouring-exports-into-africa-faster-than-anywhere-else