South Korea logged a record trade surplus with the United States last year.

According to the Trade Ministry and the Korea International Trade Association on Sunday, South Korea posted a record 44-point-four billion dollars of trade surplus with the United States in 2023, surpassing 40 billion dollars for the first time.

The surplus steadily increased from 16-point-six billion dollars in 2020 to 22-point-seven billion dollars in 2021, 28 billion dollars in 2022 and 44-point-four billion dollars last year.

The United States became the source of South Korea’s largest trade surplus last year for the first time in 21 years since 2002, while South Korea became the source of the United States’ eighth largest trade deficit.

China had been South Korea’s largest export market, but South Korea’s exports to the United States exceeded those to China in December last year for the first time in two decades.

South Korea’s trade surplus with the United States came to 13-point-26 billion dollars in the first quarter, up 86 percent from a year earlier.

The rising surplus is raising concerns that the United States may take up the issue and apply trade pressure to South Korea if Donald Trump, who considers the United States’ trade deficit a threat to the country’s economy and security, returns to the White House.