BEIJING, China: China's exporters set records abroad in 2025, but for many of the salespeople behind those numbers, the year brought heavier workloads, thinner margins, and rising personal strain as U.S. demand dried up and firms scrambled for new buyers.

China sold more goods to the world than ever last year, yet export saleswoman Aimee Chen said it was the most difficult year of her roughly two-decade career. After U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff hikes caused U.S. orders to plunge by about a third, Chen's pet products company pivoted to new markets such as South America, which tend to be lower-income and more price-sensitive.

The shift reflected Beijing's broader trade strategy and helped push China's trade surplus to a record US$1.2 trillion in 2025, even as barriers rose in significant markets. But interviews with 14 export salespeople conducted by Reuters show the strain beneath those headline figures.

Four of the salespeople said orders from new markets were often smaller and less profitable than those from the United States, cutting commissions and take-home pay. Official data showed profits at China's industrial firms fell 13.1 percent year-on-year in November, the fastest decline in more than a year.

Several also described longer hours and heightened pressure amid the export push.

"I'm very anxious," said Chen, adding she had experienced symptoms such as hair loss and insomnia.

Mingwei Liu, director at the Center for Global Work and Employment at Rutgers University, said China's export diversification relies on firms chasing large volumes of low-margin orders.

Companies that succeed often offer longer payment terms and assume greater default risk, he said.

"This market reorientation increases the labour intensity, the emotional burden, and income uncertainty faced by workers in export sales," Liu said.

China's commerce ministry, human resources ministry, and the office handling cabinet media inquiries did not respond to requests for comment.

New markets, new problems

China and the United States became deeply interconnected after Beijing joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Still, their relationship has grown more imbalanced over time, with production concentrated in China and consumption in the United States.

Some American retailers and Chinese producers developed relationships so close that deals felt almost automatic, several salespeople said.

Chen fondly recalled her past dealings with U.S. buyers, describing them as "easy-going" and quick to sign contracts. Customers in newer markets, by contrast, tend to negotiate aggressively on price, she said.

Chinese exports to the United States fell 20 percent in 2025, though it remained a top destination. Shipments rose 25.8 percent to Africa, 7.4 percent to Latin America, 13.4 percent to Southeast Asia, and 8.4 percent to the European Union.

Trade tensions escalated after Trump took office at the start of 2025, when he raised tariffs above 100 percent in April before partially rolling them back, leaving what exporters described as a fragile detente.

His re-election intensified competition among Chinese exporters for overseas demand.

Monica Chen, an auto parts salesperson in eastern Zhejiang province, said she once relied primarily on email to maintain business. Now she travels up to three times a month and cold-calls prospects.

"It's very hard to develop new markets; they are basically saturated," said Monica, who is not related to Aimee Chen.

Her company cut prices to underbid rival Chinese suppliers, but orders were still down about a third in value from 2024, she said.

Work harder, expect less.

As profits slide, companies are leaning harder on sales staff.

Cici Lv, 24, who sells electric bicycle batteries from Shenzhen, earns about 5,000 yuan ($717) a month — barely above factory wages. Unlike production workers, she said, her job never really ends.

One colleague, Rowan Wang, summed it up as: "if we're alive, we have to reply."

Several salespeople described difficulties in managing clients in unfamiliar, less affluent markets. Lv said months of conversations with one buyer ultimately produced an order for a single battery, earning her less than $2 in commission.

A review of popular export-related posts on social media platform RedNote found dozens of complaints about rising stress and unprofessional client behaviour.

"Sometimes it messes with your mind," Lv said.

Chen Bo, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute, said the pressures may signal that China's 2025 export success will be hard to repeat.

China "can't maintain sustainable economic growth by relying on foreign markets," he said, warning that weak domestic consumption forces exporters to compete aggressively abroad, boosting revenue but eroding profits.