{"id":3496,"date":"2026-04-13T15:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/3496\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T15:54:11","slug":"spains-sanchez-uses-china-trip-to-urge-beijing-to-open-up-to-end-trade-row-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/3496\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Sanchez uses China trip to urge Beijing to \u2018open up\u2019 to end trade row \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez\u00a0has urged China to \u201copen up so that Europe doesn\u2019t have to close itself off,\u201d\u00a0at the start of a trade-focused\u00a0three-day\u00a0trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chinese firms invested \u20ac643m\u00a0in Spain in 2025, up from \u20ac149m\u00a0in 2024, contributing to a total of over \u20ac9.7bn between 2010 and 2025, focusing on the energy, electric\u00a0vehicle\u00a0and technology sectors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That includes a joint project by Chinese battery giant CATL and Spanish automaker Stellantis to build a \u20ac4.1bn battery manufacturing plant in Zaragoza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, most of the\u00a0selling is\u00a0being done by Beijing. <\/p>\n

Spain ran a trade deficit of \u20ac42.3bn with China last year, with Sanchez telling his audience at Beijing\u2019s Tsinghua University\u00a0on Monday (13 April)\u00a0that China accounts for 74 percent of Spain\u2019s total trade deficit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is in line with the EU\u2019s own booming trade deficit with China which increased to \u20ac360bn in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The trade deficit was \u201cunbalanced\u201d and \u201cunsustainable\u201d,\u00a0added Sanchez.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Spanish premier\u2019s words were noticeably gentler than French president Emmanuel Macron\u2019s during a state visit last December. Macron threatened EU tariffs<\/a> against China if it did not\u00a0take action to reduce\u00a0its trade surplus, which he described as a \u201cglobal imbalance\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That could be because Spain has been among the European economies most receptive to Chinese investment over the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s enthusiasm for Chinese investment from the likes of technology giant Huawei has raised eyebrows in some quarters. Last September, commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen warned that a Spanish contract with Huawei <\/a>to store the country\u2019s judicially\u00a0authorised\u00a0wiretaps \u201ccould potentially create a dependency on a high-risk supplier in a critical and sensitive sector.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While the last year\u00a0in trade policy\u00a0has been dominated by the US Trump administration\u2019s so-called \u2018Liberation Day\u2019 tariffs,\u00a0as the US president\u00a0seeks\u00a0to rebalance trade relations, the EU\u00a0continues to be embroiled in a multi-sector trade dispute with China.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In particular, EU\u00a0officials complain that China\u2019s subsidies for its electric vehicle industry,\u00a0as well as its restrictions on access to rare earths and on European firms hoping to obtain procurement contracts.<\/p>\n

At the World Trade\u00a0Organisation\u2019s\u00a0biannual ministerial conference in Cameroon, last month, EU trade commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d\u00a0said that it was\u00a0time to reopen the WTO\u2019s\u00a0Most\u00a0Favoured\u00a0Nation (MFN)\u00a0principle\u00a0which enshrines equal treatment in trade policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For their part, EU trade ministers said that their main priority was \u201cto tackle the trade tensions that have emerged over the last few years, notably due to non-market practices and policies, focusing on industrial sectors and level playing field issues,\u201d a thinly-veiled reference to China\u2019s trade tactics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sanchez is due to\u00a0have meetings with president Xi Jinping and prime minister\u00a0Li Qiang, on Tuesday\u00a0(14 April).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spanish officials have briefed that they are hoping to obtain greater market access for agricultural and industrial goods, and to explore joint ventures in the technology sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The timing of the visit will also be noted in Washington. <\/p>\n

Sanchez has been the most vocal European critic of Trump\u2019s war against Iran, refusing to allow the US air force to use military bases in Spain to launch raids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez\u00a0has urged China to \u201copen up so that Europe doesn\u2019t have to close itself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2564,2576,2567,2573,2570,2565,2568,2571,2574,17,2566,2569,2572,2575],"class_list":["post-3496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier4279","tag-identifier4338","tag-identifier4399","tag-identifier4409","tag-namechina","tag-nameeconomy","tag-nameeu-trade","tag-namespain","tag-spain","tag-termcodechina","tag-termcodeeconomy","tag-termcodeeu-trade","tag-termcodespain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}