EU to broaden import tariffs and quotas on Chinese goods to protect key industrial sectors
Brussels says European industries face an "existential" threat from Chinese competition. The new approach will apply sector-wide protections rather than targeting individual companies or raw materials
EU industry commissioner Stephane Sejourne told the FT that Brussels would deploy import quotas and tariffs more systematically to protect entire European industrial sectors from what he described as unfair Chinese competition. "We will use safeguard clauses in a more general manner on sectors and not just on businesses or particular raw materials," he said, adding that industries including chemicals, metals, and clean technology were at risk of being destroyed.
Sejourne said the EU's daily trade deficit with China has reached 1 billion euros and that 29 million jobs are at risk from Chinese overproduction. "Our objective is not to break with China but to have a real rebalancing and real measures that allow us to do it," he said, adding that the EU could exploit the appeal of its single market as leverage. "That's the angle through which there is probably a Chinese weakness," he said.
The broader use of safeguard measures will be accompanied by proposals to force companies to diversify their supply chains. The Commission is also weighing a proposal from five member states, including France, to develop a "resilience" tool that could impose quotas or additional duties on company suppliers when imports are concentrated beyond a certain level. The measures will be discussed by commissioners at a special meeting on China.
Sejourne warned that without a more "muscular" approach, member states could wrest back control of trade policy from the EU, which he said would be "the best way to fragment the single market and weaken ourselves even more internationally."