Europe Rooting for Trump in China

WASHINGTON — Europeans are officially backing President Donald Trump when he heads to Beijing for a state visit in mid-May to discuss relations with China, one of the European Union’s top officials told Breitbart News exclusively.

Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission commissioner for economy and productivity and former prime minister of Latvia, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview near the White House on Tuesday that “we share many of the concerns” the United States has with China when asked whether Europe supports Trump in his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Well, when it comes to relations with China, we share many concerns with the United States, particularly regarding the imbalance in our trade relations, including China’s industrial overcapacity and non-market policies and practices, including China’s attempt to use our dependence, for example on critical minerals like rare earth supplies, as leverage or a choke point,” Dombrovskis further explained about China. “So we are engaged with the US on many of the aspects that I mentioned. This is also one of the big topics of the IMF spring meetings – global economic imbalances is one of those topics – and they will be discussing this in different forums, including directly with China. So there are many concerns that we share and that we need to cooperate to address. Then, on the economic side, I mentioned that the US is the EU’s largest trading partner. China is the EU’s second largest trading partner. So also, obviously, there’s a lot at stake economically. So we’re not pursuing decoupling, which is continued engagement but addressing imbalances, addressing unfair competition and also finding a way to address existing or potential dependencies on China.

Trump is expected to travel to Beijing in mid-May to meet with Xi, a trip that was postponed in early April due to the war in Iran. Trump’s visit to China comes after more than a year of trade fights between the two sides over tariffs and more, and as Trump has done since Liberation Day a year ago, he has signed trade deals with more than 85 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), including the European Union but also Japan, South Korea, India, the United Kingdom and many other countries.

Dombrovskis said the EU was committed to the agreement signed by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last summer in Scotland, while Trump was staying at his Turnberry resort.

“Well, this agreement has brought a certain degree of stability to the trade relations between the EU and the United States, and we think that is very important because we are each other’s largest trading partners. The trade relations between the EU and the United States are the most important in the world,” Dombrovskis said. “So we trade around 1.7 trillion euros every year. So there is a significant economic stake. So this stability and predictability was indispensable. Since then, there have been various twists and turns that have affected this process, including President Trump’s attempt to seize Greenland, including the Supreme Court’s reversal of Trump’s regional tariffs, etc. But on the EU side, we are committed to the deal. We are moving forward. The European Parliament is also making progress, because the European Parliament has to give the green light to the agreement… In that sense, they have to give the green light from the administration of President Trump that, on their side as well, they are determined to respect this agreement and to guarantee the conditions negotiated by the EU under this agreement.