EU delegation heads to China amid Trumpʼs trade policy

Senior European Union officials will visit China to meet President Xi Jinping, in what could be an attempt by Brussels to improve ties with Beijing amid the customs policies of the US President Donald Trumpʼs administration.

This is reported by the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post, citing sources.

The trip is scheduled for late July. The previous summit between the PRC and the EU was also held in China, so European officials will break protocol with a second visit. Under normal circumstances, the Chinese delegation would visit one of the EU countries.

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Council Antonio Costa agreed to hold the summit in Beijing.

Relations between the European Union and China have cooled since Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Brussels irritated by Beijingʼs diplomatic support for Moscow, bolstering trade ties with it.

However, after a recent conversation, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told Ursula von der Leyen that his country has the policy tools to “fully offset” any negative external shocks. He was most likely referring to Trump’s tariffs.

Meanwhile, Spain said it would build a "strong and balanced" relationship between China and the European Union.

"We need mutually beneficial relations and the promotion of balanced trade and investment," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez emphasized in his opening remarks before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

And he added that Spain sees China as a partner of the EU. Xi Jinping said that Beijing is ready to build bilateral relations with “greater strategic determination and greater vitality” against the backdrop of “changes and chaos in the international situation”. He also called for opposing “isolationism, unilateralism and secession”. This looked like a veiled mockery of the United States.

• In early April, the US President Donald Trump reported that he would impose tariffs on goods from other countries. The new tariffs will apply to more than 180 countries and territories (not including Russia, North Korea, Cuba and Belarus, which are already under sanctions). A 10% tariff was imposed on Ukraine.
• Already on April 9, Trump increased tariffs on China to 125% and introduced a 90-day tariff pause with reduced tariffs of 10% for other countries.

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