By Rene Wagner <\/p>\n
BERLIN, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Germany’s trade deficit with China widened in the first half of 2026, even as the Asian powerhouse remained its top trade \u200cpartner, preliminary data from state-run agency Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) showed on Sunday. <\/p>\n
German exports to \u200cChina fell over 12% year-on-year to just under \u20ac37 billion between January and June, the data showed, as Chinese firms cut \u200breliance on European imports, making China only the ninth-biggest market for German goods. <\/p>\n
As recently as 2021, China was the second-biggest export market. That year, Germany sold China merchandise worth \u20ac104 billion, despite the effects of the pandemic. <\/p>\n
Now, German manufacturing is struggling with both U.S. tariffs and Chinese competition, triggering major job \u200ccuts at bulwarks of industry \u2060such as carmaker Volkswagen. <\/p>\n
China, though, is selling more and more to Germany. <\/p>\n
In the first half of last year, Germany ran a trade deficit of \u20ac40 billion \u2060with China. That had swelled to some \u20ac55 billion during the same period this year. <\/p>\n
German imports from China rose 8.9% to \u20ac91.8 billion over the period. Total trade was over \u20ac128 billion, \u20ac3 billion more than with the United \u200bStates. <\/p>\n
“The \u200breasons for declining exports to China are the weak \u200bdomestic economy and increasing (Chinese) focus on \u200cdomestic value chains,” said GTAI East Asia expert Corinne Abele. <\/p>\n
German firms are now producing more inside China itself, while China’s property crisis and cash-strapped regional governments are curbing investment, Abele added. <\/p>\n
Far smaller economies like Austria and Switzerland have bought more German goods than China in 2026, the data showed. <\/p>\n
China’s diminishing reliance on Germany showed it is becoming more independent of Western powers and catching \u200cup technologically, said Commerzbank economist Vincent Stamer. <\/p>\n
China overtook the \u200bU.S. as Germany’s top trading partner in 2025 after U.S. \u200bPresident Donald Trump returned to the \u200bWhite House and launched protectionist tariff policies that have eroded German exports to \u200cthe United States. <\/p>\n
The U.S. remains Germany’s single-biggest \u200bforeign market, but exports \u200bthere fell about 6% through June to just over \u20ac74 billion, Abele said. By contrast, German imports from the U.S. grew 7.1% to nearly \u20ac51 billion. <\/p>\n
France and the Netherlands were the \u200bnext biggest export markets. Overall, German \u200cexports rose 3.7% to \u20ac817 billion through June as global growth kept orders flowing. <\/p>\n
“But the ‘Made \u200bin Germany’ brand must still reinvent itself,” said Commerzbank’s Stamer. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Rene WagnerAdditional \u200breporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Toby Chopra) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rene Wagner BERLIN, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Germany’s trade deficit with China widened in the first half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,381,179,18,265981,265980,265979,6621,19,17,151801],"class_list":["post-629516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-china","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-german-exports","tag-german-goods","tag-german-imports","tag-germany","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-trade-partner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117069199884334473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}