5 EU Countries Call for Tougher Trade Weapons to Tackle China
The paper urges sector-wide tariffs and quotas to counter Chinese overcapacity and reduce the bloc’s reliance on Chinese inputs.
- On Friday, May 29, the European Commission will meet to discuss new trade instruments aimed at curbing Chinese imports, as Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Lithuania called for aggressive responses to 'systemic and structural industrial overcapacity'.
- Beijing's trade surplus with the EU reached $113 billion between January and April, up from $91 billion the prior year, while Chinese President Xi Jinping recently hosted state visits from U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling China's diplomatic centrality.
- The Commission proposes an 'overcapacity instrument' to cap Chinese imports sector-by-sector, citing deliberate surplus production in steel, cars and solar panels. China accounts for 30 percent of global production but only 13 percent of consumption, with a 47-percent reduction in global steel imports effective July 1.
- Proposed safeguard measures would shift from product-specific anti-dumping cases to sector-wide disruption responses, with a new 'resilience tool' activated when European supply sources concentrate beyond specified thresholds. Germany and Spain's reliance on Chinese inputs, however, complicates the bloc's decoupling efforts.
- EU safeguard measures have been used sparingly against Chinese steel and ferroalloys historically, with the Netherlands—home to technology company ASML—at the forefront of economic security tensions between China and the United States. Tariffs and quotas can be imposed where import surges harm local industry.
18 Articles
18 Articles
France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania call on the European Union to tighten trade measures against China and to react more aggressively to the practices considered unfair by Beijing. In a document submitted to the European Commission, the five states call for the more frequent use of customs tariffs, the faster opening of trade investigations and the creation of new economic defence tools to protect European producers, writes Polit…
EU-China trade war edges closer as Brussels lines up emergency import safeguards
The EU Commission is now aiming a series of blows at China's trade surplus - pulling out the 'overcapacity instrument' instrument from its armoury, which would cap imports of certain Chinese products to the EU.
Europe Weighs Tougher and Faster China Trade Tools
Five European Union governments are pressing the European Commission (EC) to consider faster and broader trade-defense tools as Chinese overcapacity, trade deficits, manufacturing job losses, and supply-chain concentration move higher on the bloc’s economic-security agenda. Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Lithuania circulated a joint paper ahead of an EC discussion on China policy on May 29, according to reports by the Financial Times…
Europe pushes back on Chinese trade dominance
Europe stepped up warnings of the risks the bloc faces from a rising China, but analysts noted division among and within the continent’s biggest economies. Ahead of a European Commission meeting on dealing with China, a policy paper signed by five European countries, including France, called for “a broader, cross-sector trade defense tool,” while the EU’s industry commissioner said companies on the continent were not doing enough to cut their re…
France, Spain, Lithuania and the Netherlands, with the government of Rome, call for the contrast of economic coercion and protectionism
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