At the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China blocked a joint communiqué because of its large trade surplus, calling it unsustainable for non-market economies to flood the world with cheap exports. ^[1] Bessent said 19 of the G20's members, including Russia, supported a presidency statement released in place of a joint communiqué. ^[2] China recorded a record trade surplus of US$1.2 trillion in 2025, an increase of 20% from the previous year. ^[3] The United States recorded a trade deficit of about US$200 billion with China in 2025, according to data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. ^[4] Bessent identified the cause of the blockage as a dispute over China's enormous and unsustainable current account surplus. ^[5] China recorded a record trade surplus of US$1.2 trillion in 2025, a 20% increase from the previous year, according to data from the Office of Economic Analysis. ^[6]