Venezuela Accounts for Under 1% of China's Trade Flows

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The U.S. military conducted a surprise strike on Venezuela earlier this year. Rumors circulated online suggesting that China lost between $30 billion and over $100 billion in assets in Venezuela. However, data from the past thirty years indicates that Venezuela accounts for less than 1% of China’s total exports, imports, direct investments, and engineering projects, even falling below one-thousandth of the total.

China and Venezuela have complementary resources and industrial structures, but Venezuela’s economic weaknesses, along with policy errors, have limited the scope of bilateral trade and economic cooperation. Venezuela, despite its rich oil reserves, faces the challenges of the ‘resource curse,’ with fluctuations in global oil prices heavily influencing its economy and trade relations with China. The economic instability has been compounded by populist macroeconomic policies and social programs during the tenures of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, further deepening the resource curse.

Venezuela’s nominal GDP declined from a peak of approximately $372.6 billion in 2012 to about $42.8 billion in 2020. Its per capita GDP fell from roughly $12,688 to just $1,533 during the same period, according to IMF data. During Maduro’s 13-year rule from 2013 to 2025, inflation hit triple digits in six years, with prices increasing over 653 times in 2018 and nearly 200 times in 2019.

This challenging macroeconomic environment constrains economic and trade possibilities with China. China’s imports from Venezuela peaked at $14.5 billion in 2012 but declined sharply to $6.9 billion in 2015 following oil price drops in late 2014. Last year, imports from Venezuela dropped further to about $1 billion, representing just 0.1% of China’s total imports.

Similarly, China’s exports to Venezuela peaked at $9.3 billion in 2012 but fell to $2.5 billion by 2016. In the first eleven months of the previous year, exports were around $4.9 billion, accounting for 0.2% of China’s total exports.

Claims that China invested $60 billion in Venezuela are greatly exaggerated. According to official statistics on China’s outward foreign direct investment, the country’s direct investments in Venezuela peaked at $3.5 billion in 2018 but decreased to just $318 million in 2024, making up a tiny 0.01% of China’s total outward FDI that year.

In terms of contracted projects, China’s total project volume in Venezuela was about $6 billion in 2013 but declined to just over $100 million in 2023 and 2024, representing only 0.1% of China’s total project volume in those years.

Regarding potential risks to economic and trade interests, the impact of the situation in Venezuela on China is not substantial. While it is important to acknowledge possible risks and miscalculations, overestimating losses and panicking is unwarranted.

The U.S. has become a net exporter of oil, whereas China remains the world’s largest oil importer. If the Trump administration aimed to leverage its influence over Venezuela for profit, it would need to encourage the Venezuelan government to strengthen ties with China to sustain or increase oil exports to the second-largest economy globally.