{"id":305168,"date":"2025-07-30T23:42:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/305168\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T23:42:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:42:18","slug":"european-economy-sees-growth-of-only-0-1-as-scramble-to-get-ahead-of-us-tariffs-goes-into-reverse-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/305168\/","title":{"rendered":"European economy sees growth of only 0.1% as scramble to get ahead of US tariffs goes into reverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) \u2014 Europe\u2019s economy barely grew in the April-June quarter as frantic earlier efforts to ship goods ahead of new U.S. tariffs went into reverse and output fell for the continent\u2019s biggest economy, Germany. <\/p>\n

Gross domestic product grew an anemic 0.1% compared to the previous quarter in the 20 countries that use the euro currency, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reported Wednesday. Growth was 1.4% over the same quarter a year ago. <\/p>\n

And prospects are mediocre for the coming months, given the 15% tariff, or import tax, imposed on European goods in the U.S. under the EU-U.S. trade deal<\/a> announced Sunday. The higher tariff will burden European exports with higher costs to either be passed on to U.S. consumers or swallowed in the form of lower profits. <\/p>\n

The economy sagged after stronger than expected 0.6% growth in the first quarter, a figure inflated by companies trying to move product ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s additional tariff onslaught that was announced April 2, two days after the first quarter ended.<\/p>\n

Output fell 0.1% in Germany and Italy, while growth of 0.3% in France was boosted by a rise in auto and aircraft inventories while domestic demand was otherwise stagnant. That left Spain as the only strong performer among the four largest eurozone economies at 0.7% <\/p>\n

\u201cWith the 15% U.S. universal tariff likely to subtract around 0.2% from the region\u2019s GDP, growth is likely to remain weak in the rest of this year,\u201d said Franziska Palmas, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s economy remains roughly the same size as it was before the pandemic six years ago, as its export-dominated business sector struggles with multiple issues including stronger competition from China, a lack of skilled workers, higher energy prices, lagging infrastructure investment, and burdensome regulation and bureaucracy. <\/p>\n

Economist Palmas said that Germany \u201cis likely to be hit harder than other major economies by tariffs and continue to struggle this year\u201d before increased government spending<\/a> from the new government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, aimed at making up the infrastructure gap, starts to boost the economy in 2026. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Germany\u2019s Cabinet approved a draft 2026 budget that foresees a second consecutive year of record government investment in priorities such as modernizing transport infrastructure, building homes, security and digitization. Spending is set to rise to 126.7 billion euros ($146.2 billion) next year from 115.7 billion euros in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur top priority is to secure jobs and ensure new economic strength,\u201d Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Geir Moulson contributed from Berlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) \u2014 Europe\u2019s economy barely grew in the April-June quarter as frantic earlier efforts to ship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[51,32,34092,1700,2000,5215,299,112224,1945,4179,1824,3058,49697,5214,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-305168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-economic-indicators","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-eurocopa-2024","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-franziska-palmas","16":"tag-friedrich-merz","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-germany","19":"tag-international-trade","20":"tag-lars-klingbeil","21":"tag-tariffs-and-global-trade","22":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114944838502065171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}