China’s deal to buy more US goods is ‘distortion of the market’, Europeans complain
After the deal was signed in Washington on Wednesday, Vice-Premier Liu He sought to reassure other countries that they would not suffer as a result of the agreement, but the message was not convincing for some.
Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said the purchasing commitment was “managed trade – meaning the US tells China what it should buy from America”, and it would lead firms from Europe to “wonder where our place is”.
China faced “less choice or possibilities of sourcing, say, soybeans from Brazil, or gas from Australia and Qatar, or coal from India, or aeroplanes from Europe, and this is distortion of the market”, Wuttke told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.
European diplomats fear the bloc could be sidelined as China puts its focus on the US. Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed that Beijing would continue to treat Europe as a partner, and the EU envoy to China was given a briefing on the trade deal by the foreign ministry on Thursday in a bid to ease concerns.
The new trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, who happens to be in Washington this week. Top of his mind will be finding a way to persuade Trump not to wage a tariffs war with the EU – a scenario that has haunted the bloc in recent months amid disputes over France’s new digital services tax and European support for Boeing’s chief rival, Airbus.
But pessimism persists in Brussels. “With South Korea, Japan, Canada, Mexico and now China under his buckle, the Trump administration has already indicated to dust off the outstanding issues with the EU – namely the trade deficit,” said Tobias Gehrke, a research fellow at the Brussels-based Egmont Institute.
The EU isn't happy.
Last edited by LurkerJ - on 17 January 2020
