During his campaign, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signaled a radical change from previous leaders’ cheerleading for trade with China: He warned business chiefs against bigger investments there and not to count on government help if things went wrong.
But economic gravity is proving inescapable, countering talk from Berlin of “derisking” from the world’s second-largest economy. German investment in China reached a four-year high in 2025, and Chinese exports to Germany increased while German exports to China dropped.