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Xiaofei Xu

Huizhao Huang

Facing Europe’s ever-widening trade deficit with Beijing, Berlin is increasingly singing the same tune as Paris. The two nations displayed a united front at this year’s Franco-German Ministerial Council, which will soon be put on paper in a joint road map due by September at the request of Germany.
“Our work between Germany and France is indispensable at a time when Russia threatens our security, when the People’s Republic of China challenges our economy, and when the transatlantic partnership has lost its self-evident character,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told journalists after the meeting on Friday.
His language was milder than that of French President Emmanuel Macron – who denounced China’s “great trade aggressiveness” – but the direction of travel was impossible to miss: a German chancellor, side by side with the French president, ranking China’s threat to Europe’s economy alongside Russia’s war in Ukraine and the waning alliance with the US.
The EU’s top two economies jointly called for swift and systematic use of the bloc’s existing tools while they pledged to press Brussels “to promptly submit concrete proposals on how to strengthen our trade defence toolbox, industrial policy as well as economic security”, according to the joint statement.
“We had a very good discussion; I think we had never been so convergent on the question of China,” Macron said during the press conference.
Macron insisted that neither France nor Germany were anti-China. But the numbers, he stressed, speak for themselves: every day, Europe adds €1 billion (US$1.14 billion) to its trade deficit with China and loses thousands of jobs.
Part of the reason, he acknowledged, lies in China’s formidable capacity to innovate. He reiterated the need for China to transfer technology and create jobs in Europe, and for Europe to shield its industry from what he called China’s massive subsidies and unruly behaviour.
Beijing has dismissed these and other claims from EU officials over its industrial capacity, arguing that Chinese competitiveness stems from innovation rather than state support.
Paris and Berlin will work together to present a road map for making Europe faster at protecting its industries in the face of rising Chinese competition, according to Macron, stressing that the initiative came from Merz.
The road map will come before the next round of trade talks between Beijing and Brussels which are set for October.


According to Macron, Brussels needed to use urgent measures to protect a sector once a threat from China had been identified, instead of spending 18 months on an investigation.
The two countries would also like to engage with China in a dialogue on Beijing’s currency and its financial market, Macron added.
Merz also weighed in on the yuan, calling it “drastically undervalued”, and challenged Beijing to make it freely convertible if it believed the currency was fairly valued.
Berlin’s stance is a spell of relief for Paris, which began calling for tough trade measures against China last year, as the latter’s trade surplus with Europe began to skyrocket, when Trump’s trade war forced many Chinese companies to divert their exports to Europe.
Macron reminded journalists the EU’s two biggest economies were not in agreement when Brussels first imposed tariffs on made-in-China EVs: France voted for and Germany voted against.
But the situation changed one year later as the numbers kept climbing: Germany’s trade deficit with China reached €89.3 billion in 2025, up 33.5 per cent from €66.9 billion in 2024, according to official German customs data.
Both leaders nevertheless stressed their willingness to engage China in dialogues as they push for Europe to protect itself from China’s exports.
“I do not want a new trade conflict with China, but I do want an open dialogue about these imbalances,” Merz said.
“These imbalances come at the expense of our industry, and fundamentally China cannot have an interest in that either. Because we are dependent on each other.”


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Both nations call on Brussels to strengthen its defences as EU adds US$1.14 billion a day to its China trade shortfall, while losing jobs


Both nations call on Brussels to strengthen its defences as EU adds US$1.14 billion a day to its China trade shortfall, while losing jobs.


As EU’s China trade deficit widens, Germany changes tack to join France’s Beijing pushback

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Both nations call on Brussels to strengthen its defences as EU adds US$1.14 billion a day to its China trade shortfall, while losing jobs

Both nations call on Brussels to strengthen its defences as EU adds US$1.14 billion a day to its China trade shortfall, while losing jobs