As EU’s China trade deficit widens, Germany changes tack to join France’s Beijing pushback

Facing Europe’s ever-widening trade deficit with Beijing, Berlin is increasingly singing the same tune as Paris. The two nations displayed a united front at this year’s Franco-German Ministerial Council, which will soon be put on paper in a joint road map due by September at the request of Germany.“Our work between Germany and France is indispensable at a time when Russia threatens our security, when the People’s Republic of China challenges our economy, and when the transatlantic partnership has lost its self-evident character,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told journalists after the meeting on Friday.His language was milder than that of French President Emmanuel Macron – who denounced China’s “great trade aggressiveness” – but the direction of travel was impossible to miss: a German chancellor, side by side with the French president, ranking China’s threat to Europe’s economy alongside Russia’s war in Ukraine and the waning alliance with the US.