Trade surplus means that a country's total export trade is greater than its total import trade, which is also called "surplus". For China and the United States, the two countries import and export each other, when the export amount of China is greater than that of Party B (or the import amount of China from China is less than that of the United States from China).
In other words, we sell more to the United States than we buy from the United States, and the difference is China's trade surplus and the United States' trade deficit.
On the surface, the trade surplus is beneficial to China, but the excessive trade surplus shows China's dependence on foreign trade, which can be said to be a double-edged sword.
The intermediate state between trade surplus and trade deficit is called trade balance (that is, a country's foreign trade exports and imports are equal). Generally speaking, a huge trade surplus will lead to the expansion of foreign exchange reserves, which will bring greater appreciation pressure to the domestic currency.
Extended data:
Sources of surplus and deficit:
The concepts of surplus and deficit are very common, but they are two nouns derived from the fallacy of mercantilism. These two concepts are often applied to national policies, leading to unnecessary trade disputes.
If the input of money and gold and silver exceeds their output, it is called "surplus" which means "surplus" in English; If the output of money and gold and silver exceeds their input, it is called "deficit", which means "imbalance" in English.
Why the surplus is regarded as "favorable" and the deficit as "unfavorable" stems from the wrong understanding of mercantilism: that is, they regard money as wealth, and think that more money inflows will increase wealth, while money outflows will reduce wealth, so it is also unfavorable. As Mises pointed out, surplus and deficit are the names that represent the fallacy of mercantilism. They are so difficult to return that they are still in use today.
Baidu encyclopedia-surplus
Baidu encyclopedia-deficit