BERLIN, Jan 2 (Reuters) – German exporters should prepare for continued weakness in 2026 in their two \u200blargest markets, the United States and China, with \u200clittle prospect of recovery, the BGA trade association said on Friday.<\/p>\n
“We \u200cdo not see a turnaround, but at best a brief respite,” said BGA president Dirk Jandura.<\/p>\n
Exports to the U.S. are projected to have fallen more than 7% to \u2060just under 150 \u200cbillion euros ($156 billion) in 2025, while exports to China have contracted even more sharply, \u200ddropping 10% to 81 billion euros, GTAI figures show.<\/p>\n
TARIFFS WEIGH ON TRANSATLANTIC TRADE<\/p>\n
U.S. tariffs on EU goods have acted like “sand in \u200bthe gears of transatlantic trade”, Jandura said, adding \u200cthey created a permanent additional burden on margins for German exporters.<\/p>\n
Germany also faces structural headwinds, including a comparatively strong euro, high energy costs, excessive bureaucracy and weak investment, the BGA chief said.<\/p>\n
CHINA PIVOT REDUCES GERMAN EXPORTS<\/p>\n
In \u2060China, industrial policies favouring domestic \u200bproducers have eroded demand for German \u200bgoods, particularly in automotive, mechanical engineering and chemicals sectors where Chinese competitors are gaining ground.<\/p>\n
German \u200dcompanies are \u2060increasingly localizing production within China or shifting investment to other Asian markets, Jandura said.<\/p>\n
“This often stabilizes global \u2060sales, but leads to fewer exports from Germany,” he said.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.9615 \u200ceuros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Rene Wagner, writing by Maria \u200cMartinez, Editing by Madeline Chambers)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN, Jan 2 (Reuters) – German exporters should prepare for continued weakness in 2026 in their two \u200blargest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[186905,28,144,186903,101,186904,104178,107967],"class_list":{"0":"post-383469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bga","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-dirk-jandura","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-german-companies","14":"tag-trade-association","15":"tag-transatlantic-trade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}