The EU has registered a trade deficit in goods for the first time in three years, as soaring energy imports outpaced an increase in the bloc\u2019s exports.<\/p>\n
Eurostat, Brussels\u2019 official statistics office, reported on Tuesday that the EU recorded a deficit of \u20ac21.8 billion in the second quarter of this year, down from a surplus of \u20ac6.7 billion in the first quarter \u2013 the first deficit since the second quarter of 2023.<\/p>\n
The decline was largely driven by rising oil and gas imports. The EU\u2019s trade deficit for energy grew from \u20ac71.3 billion to \u20ac101.1 billion between the first and second quarters, with fuel imports from the US rising from \u20ac19.8 billion to \u20ac29.0 billion.<\/p>\n
Efforts by European companies to avoid US President\u2019s sweeping tariffs by \u2018front-loading\u2019 exports to America also contributed to the trade imbalance. EU exports to the US are down \u20ac43.7 billion relative to the first quarter of 2025, when its global trade surplus peaked at \u20ac51 billion.<\/p>\n
Surging energy prices saw the EU\u2019s total imports rise by \u20ac63.4 billion, dwarfing a \u20ac34.9 billion growth in exports that was largely driven by increases in chemicals and food sales.<\/p>\n
Arthur Leichthammer, a policy fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, a Berlin-based think tank, said the data is a \u201csymptom\u201d of Europe\u2019s broader trade troubles, which have been compounded in recent years by ballooning cheap industrial exports from China.<\/p>\n
The EU\u2019s trade deficit with China, which has doubled over the past five years, rose by \u20ac2.9 billion to \u20ac103.3 billion from the first to the second quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
The EU recorded especially large deficits in vehicles, machinery, and other manufactured goods in its trade with Beijing, which is the world\u2019s second-biggest economy and the bloc\u2019s second-largest trade partner after the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to China, the data really follows the narrative we\u2019ve been warning against \u2013 and it isn\u2019t skewed by tariff front-loading, like in the US case,\u201d Leichthammer said.<\/p>\n
EU-China relations have also been exacerbated in recent years by Beijing\u2019s close ties to Russia and its export controls on critical minerals, whose production China dominates.<\/p>\n
Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, the EU trade commissioner, has demanded \u201ctangible results\u201d regarding China\u2019s trade surplus and export restrictions before his scheduled visit to Beijing in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The EU has registered a trade deficit in goods for the first time in three years, as soaring energy imports outpaced an increase in the bloc\u2019s exports. Eurostat, Brussels\u2019 official statistics office, reported on Tuesday that the EU recorded a deficit of \u20ac21.8 billion in the second quarter of this year, down from a surplus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26307,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26303\/revisions\/26307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}