We are in for a long trade war. In the months since “Liberation Day” last year, when Donald Trump let loose a volley of tariffs against imports from everywhere, countries have rushed to build new relationships in the hope of maybe circumventing the US to protect the global trading system. The European Union hurried to sign a trade agreement with South America’s Mercosur bloc that had been sitting on ice for years. China and south-east Asian nations deepened their trade agreement. The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, travelled to Beijing…
Tag: European Union
Trump Aims New Tariffs at 59 Countries and the European Union
President Trump has proposed tariffs of at least 10 percent on 60 American trading partners, his most aggressive effort yet to enact new import duties after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s sweeping tariffs. Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said on Tuesday night that investigations found that the 59 countries, along with the 27-nation European Union, had failed to enact or effectively enforce laws prohibiting imports made with forced labor. The administration, invoking a legal provision known as Section 301, proposed a 12.5 percent duty on imports from…
When will the EU punch its weight in a perilous world? That’s the question countries eager to join should be asking | Simon Tisdall
Giant butter mountains, wine lakes and an apocryphal EU ban on bendy bananas formed the mythological backdrop to Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum debacle. Yet while many Vote Leave claims were exaggerated, inaccurate or blatantly untrue, the EU’s capacity for laying itself open to ridicule is undiminished 10 years on. Take the strange case of the whingeing EU commissioners, annoyed that their officially provided electric vehicles cannot manage the time-consuming 280-mile journey between Brussels and Strasbourg without stopping to recharge. This important issue, first reported by Politico, raises vital questions. Do…
Europe Is Edging Closer to a Trade War With China. Here’s Why.
Kaja Kallas, the top European Union diplomat, recently suggested that ending the continent’s dependence on China was like trying to cure a disease. “Chemotherapy” might be needed, she said, and it was likely to be painful. The comments were an example of the tone Europe is increasingly taking on China, the second-largest goods trading partner for the 27-nation European Union, after the United States. As Beijing adopts more aggressive trade policies and as imports from China into Europe soar, European leaders and companies are fretting over their reliance on Chinese…
EU to discuss potential restrictions on Chinese imports amid fears of overreliance
EU commissioners will meet on Friday for crunch talks aimed at imposing new restrictions on imports from China amid growing concern that Beijing is fuelling conditions for US-style rust belt towns in Europe. The surge in imports of everything from electric cars to key components in machines, medical devices and foodstuffs has been dubbed China Shock 2.0, potentially mirroring the experience in the US 25 years ago when Beijing joined the World Trade Organization. Commissioners representing each member state have been asked to bring examples of Chinese activities in all…
Temu Hit With Fine in E.U. Over Sales of Unsafe Goods
The low-cost Chinese e-commerce platform Temu was fined 200 million euros ($232 million) by the European Union on Thursday for failing to spot and curb the sale of illegal products. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said Temu had violated the European Union’s Digital Services Act, the bloc’s wide-ranging law that polices online practices. Temu is required to submit a plan to address the breaches by Aug. 28. It could also appeal. The commission opened its investigation into Temu in 2024, one year after the company first expanded into…
EU fines Temu for failing to stop sale of illegal and dangerous products
EU regulators have fined the Chinese shopping website Temu €200m (£173m) for failing to stop the sale of illegal and dangerous products. The European Commission imposed the penalty after a 19-month investigation that found consumers were very likely to encounter illegal or unsafe products including baby toys and electronics on the firm’s website. An unpublished mystery shopping exercise carried out for the commission found a “high percentage” of unsafe baby products and a “very high percentage” of dangerous chargers for sale on the platform, as well as unsafe clothes and…
Germany urged to stop admiring Beijing and wake up to ‘China Shock 2.0’
Germany must stop admiring China’s success in the EU or it will sleepwalk into the kind of deindustrialisation the US experienced 25 years ago, a leading Brussels thinktank has said. With China’s surplus with Germany having doubled between 2024 and 2025 from $12bn (£9bn) to $25bn, creating a $94bn trade imbalance, the Centre for European Reform (CER) said Europe’s largest economy risked a repeat of what happened in the US in 2001 when a sudden surge in imports permanently hollowed out towns in the American midwest. “China Shock 1.0” not…
Fears of new China shock as EU industry’s reliance on imports grows
Europe is facing a fresh China shock that threatens to cannibalise local factories, leading to job losses and de facto colonisation of industry by Beijing, trade analysts and representatives have said. They fear the plunging exchange rate and support for Chinese “zombie firms” has echoes of the crisis in the US 25 years ago when the term “China shock” was coined. It referred to the impact of China bursting on to the global trade stage after becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, with soaring imports displacing local industries…
EU carmakers pave way for Chinese rivals as balance in market shifts
Chinese carmaker Xpeng is on the hunt for a factory in Europe. Volkswagen is aiming to reduce the number of its factories. It seems like it should have been the perfect set-up for a deal. Yet there was one problem with the plant on offer, according to Elvis Cheng, Xpeng’s managing director of north-eastern Europe: “It’s a little bit, I would say, old.” The withering verdict on the facilities of Germany’s carmaking champion, delivered this week at a Financial Times conference, may cause some awkwardness between Xpeng and Volkswagen, which…