French President Emmanuel Macron said he had threatened Beijing with tariffs during his state visit to China if there was no action taken to reduce the country’s ever widening trade deficit with the European Union.
French President Emmanuel Macron has revealed that he warned Chinese leaders of potential tariffs during his recent state visit, pressing Beijing to address the EU’s sharply expanding trade deficit with China.
Macron, who travelled to China earlier in December, said he pushed for greater cooperation on what he described as untenable global trade distortions, as well as key geopolitical and environmental issues.
In an interview with Les Echos published Sunday, Macron said he conveyed a blunt message: China’s swelling trade surplus was “unsustainable” and was effectively weakening its own markets by sharply reducing imports from Europe.
He said he told Chinese officials that, without corrective action from Beijing, the EU may have to adopt tougher steps in the coming months, including tariff measures similar to those implemented by the United States.
The EU’s goods trade deficit with China has ballooned by nearly 60% since 2019, while France’s trade balance with the $19 trillion economy continues to widen.
Macron has in the past sought to project a robust European front in dealing with China, pushing Brussels to deploy protectionist countermeasures to slow the arrival of Chinese goods hammering European industry.
Macron told Les Echos that the European industry was in a tough position, caught between U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionism and China, which ”is hitting the heart of the European industrial and innovation model”.
”Today, we are caught between the two and it is a matter of life or death for the European industry. We have become the adjustment market and this is the worst-case scenario,” he added.
Macron also said he was proposing a more conciliatory approach towards China, such as the dismantling of restrictions on exports of semiconductor machinery on the European side and limitations on exports of rare earths on the Chinese side.
Macron called on Chinese companies to invest in Europe and to ”create value and opportunities for Europe”.
With inputs from agencies
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