The European Commission just said the quiet part out loud. On May 29, the bloc’s executive arm declared its trade and investment relationship with China “not sustainable,” signaling a sharp pivot toward defensive economic policy.
The numbers behind the declaration are hard to argue with. The EU ran a trade deficit of €359.8 billion with China in 2025, a figure driven overwhelmingly by imports of electrical machinery and electronics.
What Brussels is actually proposing
Supply-chain diversification mandates sit at the center of the strategy. New trade instruments are being developed with a focus on chemicals, metals, and clean-energy technology.
A non-paper from five EU member states preceded the announcement, calling for more frequent safeguard investigations and entirely new trade-defense tools.
