Argentina posts trade surplus for 2025, extending positive run

Argentina recorded a trade surplus of US$11.286 billion in 2025, marking a second consecutive year in the black for President Javier Milei.

Data released by the INDEC national statistics bureau Tuesday follows the government’s announcement last Friday that Argentina posted a fiscal surplus in 2025, likewise for the second year in a row.

According to INDEC data, Argentina exported goods worth US$87.077 billion last year, while imports totalled US$75.791 billion.

Although this marked a second consecutive trade surplus, the figure represented a decline compared to 2024. That year’s record surplus of US$18.899 billion was largely explained by a sharp contraction in imports and a rebound in agricultural exports following the previous year’s drought.

In 2025, exports rose 9.3 percent year on year, driven by primary products, which increased 21.2 percent. Manufactured goods of agricultural origin grew 2.7 percent, while industrial manufacturing rose six percent.

Brazil remained Argentina’s main trading partner, accounting for US$12.771 billion in exports and US$18.424 billion in imports, despite the ongoing tensions between Milei and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Last Friday, the government reported that the country closed 2025 with a primary fiscal surplus, before interest payments, equivalent to 1.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The overall fiscal surplus stood at 0.2 percent of GDP.

President Milei has completed two consecutive years with what the government describes as “twin surpluses,” both fiscal and trade-related. Before he took office, Argentina had not recorded a surplus in its public accounts since 2010.

During Milei’s first two years in government, inflation was also sharply reduced, falling from 211 percent in 2023 to 118 percent in 2024 and 31.5 percent in 2025.

The 2025 outcome was underpinned by a steep adjustment in public spending, including cuts to subsidies and frozen budgets in areas such as education, healthcare, scientific research and public works. 

– TIMES/AFP