{"id":983758,"date":"2026-05-25T11:48:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/983758\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:48:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:48:27","slug":"eu-china-trade-war-edges-closer-as-brussels-lines-up-emergency-import-safeguards-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/983758\/","title":{"rendered":"EU-China trade war edges closer as Brussels lines up emergency import safeguards \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you\u2019re not\u00a0at the table, you\u2019re on the menu,\u201d\u00a0was the verdict back\u00a0in January\u00a0of Canadian prime minister Mark Carney\u00a0on\u00a0the world\u2019s new diplomatic order \u2014 one which\u00a0appears to be\u00a0dominated by China and the United States.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the past 10 days, Chinese president Xi Jinping has hosted state visits by US counterpart Donald Trump and Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin. Russia might not be an economic\u00a0superpower,\u00a0but\u00a0it is fair to assume that\u00a0trade was on the agenda in both cases. Trump left Beijing promising that China would be buying billions of dollars in extra agricultural goods\u00a0from the US, though no detail has\u00a0emerged\u00a0since his trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next week, however, China will be on the menu when the EU\u2019s college of commissioners meet\u00a0on Friday (29 May) to discuss a series of new trade instruments\u00a0that are aimed primarily at curbing Chinese imports to the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

Among a series of proposed changes to EU procurement rules, the\u00a0single\u00a0main item\u00a0for discussion\u00a0is a so-called \u2018overcapacity instrument\u2019 that would cap\u00a0imports of Chinese products sector-by-sector. <\/p>\n

The commission insists that China is\u00a0deliberately\u00a0producing\u00a0surplus steel, cars, solar\u00a0panels\u00a0and a raft of other products to drop the price\u00a0and puts European rivals out of business.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChina currently accounts for 30 percent of global production but just 13 percent of consumption. That is an imbalance that the world just cannot digest,\u201d Sabine Weyand, the commission\u2019s outgoing chief trade\u00a0negotiator,\u00a0told MEPs earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China\u00a0sold goods worth \u20ac360bn<\/a>\u00a0than it bought from the EU\u00a0in 2025 and\u00a0that trade surplus is rapidly getting larger. According to Chinese customs data,\u00a0Beijing trade surplus with the EU amounted to $113bn [\u20ac97bn] between January and April, up from $91bn over the same period last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Source: European Council <\/a><\/p>\n

Reliance anxieties<\/p>\n

Though some EU member states, such as Germany and Spain, are increasingly reliant on Chinese inputs for their own industries, the commission is anxious to break or at least reduce\u00a0this\u00a0reliance,\u00a0and the new proposals should not come as a surprise. <\/p>\n

In its economic security strategy published last December, which promised to beef up the bloc\u2019s \u2018strategic autonomy\u2019,\u00a0the commission said it would present new tools by September 2026 to protect EU industry from unfair trade policies and overcapacities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China will\u00a0bear the brunt of\u00a0a\u00a047-percent reduction in global steel imports, a deal on which was concluded by EU lawmakers in April and will come into force on 1 July.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf you\u2019re not\u00a0at the table, you\u2019re on the menu,\u201d\u00a0was the verdict back\u00a0in January\u00a0of Canadian prime minister Mark Carney\u00a0on\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":983759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,217086,219220,273573,217084,219218,273571,217085,219219,273572],"class_list":["post-983758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier4044","tag-identifier4338","tag-identifier4399","tag-nameanalysis","tag-namechina","tag-nameeu-trade","tag-termcodeanalysis","tag-termcodechina","tag-termcodeeu-trade"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116635062989429109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983758","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=983758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/983759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}