{"id":282250,"date":"2026-02-13T13:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/282250\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:28:08","slug":"europes-china-shock-worsens-as-trade-deficit-widens-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/282250\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s China shock worsens as trade deficit widens \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

France\u2019s High Commission for Strategy and Planning estimates that a quarter of the country\u2019s exports are \u201cdirectly threatened\u201d by Chinese competition. For Germany, that number rises to a third. The advisory body has recommended<\/a> that the EU retaliate with a weaker euro \u2014 which would give exporters a boost \u2014 and across-the-board tariffs.<\/p>\n

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng seemed to offer an olive branch<\/a> at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last month.<\/p>\n

In a speech made in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland, He promised that China would uphold the international trade order and \u201copen its door still wider to the world.\u201d He also said that the government would move to fix economic imbalances that had sapped domestic demand and added to the export glut. <\/p>\n

But policymakers, both in EU capitals and the Berlaymont, are skeptical that China is serious about any shift toward household consumption.<\/p>\n

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said this week that Chinese officials have been \u201csaying the right things\u201d with talk of \u201crebalancing of the Chinese economy with more consumption.\u201d But, he told reporters: \u201cWe feel that so far, there\u2019s been a lot of talk, but not many results yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an attitude shared by top Commission trade official Joanna Szychowska who, at a conference last month, said the EU should not \u201call of a sudden become friends with China today because we have a shift in U.S. policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChina is very much focused on transactions. Now we have to ask ourselves the question of what transactions we can make \u2014 so what is our leverage, what is our strength?\u201d added Szychowska, who is director for Asia, services and digital trade.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Zia Weise and Geoffrey Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France\u2019s High Commission for Strategy and Planning estimates that a quarter of the country\u2019s exports are \u201cdirectly threatened\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[363,2300,3739,138,6799,12688,607,4596,537,3105,1651,65,12697,219,12699,21158,3214,246,1221,1223,3215,2454,1428,111,139,69,13810,1321,157744,7677,145,584,1430,4420],"class_list":{"0":"post-282250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-asia-economy","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-cars","13":"tag-chemicals","14":"tag-china","15":"tag-competition","16":"tag-crisis","17":"tag-data","18":"tag-digital","19":"tag-donald-trump","20":"tag-dumping-duties","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-electric-vehicles","23":"tag-emmanuel-macron","24":"tag-exports","25":"tag-finance","26":"tag-france","27":"tag-germany","28":"tag-imports","29":"tag-industry","30":"tag-manufacturing","31":"tag-new-zealand","32":"tag-newzealand","33":"tag-nz","34":"tag-robotics","35":"tag-services","36":"tag-state-aid","37":"tag-tariffs","38":"tag-technology","39":"tag-trade","40":"tag-united-states","41":"tag-xi-jinping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}