In 2025, global trade entered a period of deep adjustment with the superposition of multiple variables.

Let's review the major events that occurred in the foreign trade industry in 2025.

The "new official" Trump took office, and his "three fires" all burned on tariffs, and also burned into the profit margins of cross-border sellers. The uncertainty brought by frequent changes in US tariffs is forcing sellers to diversify their market layouts and accelerate industry reshuffling.

At the beginning of 2025, the US "sell or ban" TikTok bill triggered a global user migration. In just two days, over 700,000 overseas users flooded into Xiaohongshu, pushing it to the top of the App Store download charts in the US, Canada, the UK, and other regions.

Leveraging this wave of "great migration," Xiaohongshu quickly launched its global e-commerce layout and officially launched the "E-commerce Going Global Pilot Program" on March 10th, covering the US, Hong Kong, and Macau markets in the first phase.

Amidst the escalation of China-US trade friction in April 2025, DHgate even climbed to the top position in the U.S. shopping app free charts and also reached the forefront of all free apps, second only to ChatGPT.

In the first half of 2025, news of layoffs frequently appeared on platforms such as Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair, and TikTok, covering regions like North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, and involving business segments such as retail, technology, customer service, and logistics.

Starting from 2025, with the United States canceling the duty-free policy for small parcels as a starting point, many countries around the world have followed suit, gradually canceling tariff exemptions for low-value imported goods and moving towards comprehensive taxation.

In Europe, the EU plans to levy a fixed tariff and handling fee on low-value parcels starting from 2026; member states such as Germany, France, and Belgium have also announced specific plans to increase value-added tax or tariffs. The UK and Russia have also set timetables to abolish duty-free thresholds in the coming years.

In Asia, Japan and Thailand have both made it clear that they will cancel the duty-free treatment for imported goods below 10,000 Japanese Yen and 1,500 Thai Baht respectively from 2026, leading to a significant increase in the comprehensive tax burden for related parcels.

2025 is a year of AI changing daily life and industrial applications, and also a year of penetration into cross-border trade.

In early 2025, DeepSeek applications and Doubao domestic AI application tools were launched, and a productivity revolution centered on "intelligent efficiency improvement" fully unfolded in the commercial trade sector. Walmart's proprietary AI platform "Wallaby", Alibaba's "1688 AI Edition" standalone APP, and Amazon's B2B AI assistant were successively introduced, achieving end-to-end intelligence from supply chain matching and intelligent product selection to customer service.

In June 2025, trendy toys represented by POP MART's IP, Labubu, sparked a global "buying frenzy" with their "borderless aesthetics." POP MART's Q1 2025 financial report shows a year-on-year surge of 475% in overseas market revenue. This phenomenal success has also driven the prosperity of the entire trendy toy industry, with the number of domestic trendy toy-related enterprises increasing more than tenfold compared to 2020.

Prior to this, phenomenal IPs deeply rooted in Chinese traditional culture, such as "Black Myth: Wukong" and "Nezha," which conquered the global market through modern expression and technological innovation, also shone brightly in 2025. It is worth mentioning that Chinese short dramas and novels have also set off a wave.

The brilliant cases of Chinese culture going global have become a key event in global consumption and cultural trade in 2025 that cannot be ignored.

At the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in June 2025, China announced the implementation of a 100% zero-tariff policy for 53 African countries with diplomatic relations, covering a wide range of product categories including agricultural products, mineral products, and industrial products.

Driven by the zero-tariff policy, China-Africa trade vitality significantly increased in 2025. According to statistics, the growth rate of mechanical and electrical products exported to Africa has been rapid. Five categories of infrastructure-related products, including machinery and equipment, electrical machinery, automobiles, ships, and steel and its products, account for approximately 55% of the total mechanical and electrical products imported by Africa from China, contributing 75% to the export growth to Africa this year and becoming the core engine driving exports.

In October 2025, China and ASEAN signed the upgrade protocol for the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area Version 3.0, covering areas such as the digital economy, green economy, and supply chain connectivity, promoting regional integration and sustainable development, and creating broader space for bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

In December 2025, Hainan Free Trade Port officially launched its island-wide "sealing off" policy, implementing the "open on the first line, managed on the second line" policy. It offers zero tariffs for eligible imported goods, becoming a new highland for China's opening up to the outside world.

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