Europe's trade exposure to China was the backdrop for a call by Deutsche Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel to build commercial links with partners across Asia and reduce reliance on critical imports.
Eurostat's April 10, 2026, release listed €559.4 billion in EU imports from China and €199.6 billion in exports for 2025. It calculated a €359.8 billion goods deficit in that release. In the same April release, Eurostat reported a 6.4% increase in imports from 2024 and a 6.5% drop in exports.
Nagel described China as both a major market for European goods and a source of industrial competition. He said EU exports to China had remained broadly steady since 2019, even as imports climbed.
He said exports to South Korea, India and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had risen, while trade with Japan grew more moderately. Across the markets in his comparison, imports increased faster than exports in most cases, he said, without naming the exceptions. Nagel called for resilient ties with China and stronger partnerships across Asia, saying wider trade could benefit both sides.
The EU and India concluded free-trade negotiations on Jan. 27, 2026. The EU and Indonesia finalized talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and a separate Investment Protection Agreement on Sept. 23, 2025. Both milestones marked the end of negotiations, not the agreements' entry into force.
Nagel cited European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), a Dresden venture with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) among its partners, as a project expected to add semiconductor capacity. He pointed to that planned capacity as a way regional trade ties can extend into manufacturing cooperation.
He also tied Europe's ability to compete to domestic capabilities, calling for investment in infrastructure, venture funding and computing resources. In his framing, expanding trade abroad would go hand in hand with building capacity at home.
