China’s trade grip tightens in Europe as clock ticks towards October deadline

SCMP | Aug. 21, 2026, 10 a.m. | Original

Shipping containers at a port in Nanjing, eastern China. Brussels has set a three-month deadline for a rebalancing of trade ties. Photo: AFP

Finbarr Bermingham in Brussels

Midway through a three-month negotiating period with Beijing, new data show the trade balances of 24 European Union member states are still moving in what Brussels considers to be the wrong direction.

China extended its trade surplus over all but three EU members in July compared to a year earlier, calculations based on new Chinese customs figures showed. In some instances, the monthly swing was dramatic.

China’s surplus with Sweden quadrupled, while for Malta it rose by 166.6 per cent. For Romania it expanded 94.4 per cent, and for Finland 93.7 per cent.

For the bloc’s biggest economies, Germany’s deficit shot up 86.5 per cent compared to July 2025, Poland’s was up 31.9 per cent, the Netherlands rose 14.5 per cent, Spain by 12.4 per cent and France by 4.2 per cent.

Following a meeting between the sides’ respective trade chiefs at the end of June, Brussels set a three-month deadline for a rebalancing of trade ties , amid fears that cheap Chinese imports are helping to deindustrialise swathes of the European manufacturing economy. After this point, it has pledged to take action to redress things.
EU leaders debate new China trade policy over ‘systemic threat’

While the bloc’s officials are not entirely fixated on trade deficits, they have become a symbol of concerns about undeclared Chinese state subsidies and industrial overcapacities that have spilled over from spreadsheets to open geoeconomic rivalry.

Prince Harry and others ordered to pay initial US$13 million in failed lawsuit China’s trade grip tightens in Europe as clock ticks towards October deadline