EU trade chief travels to US, China in last-ditch effort to avert trade war

Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, said Europe's stated concerns about the impact of China's export-led industrial model were almost certainly genuine.

“[We] share some of the US’s legitimate concerns about Chinese overcapacities,” he said. “Neither Mexico nor Canada run export-driven growth models that undercut European manufacturing.”

Tordoir added that Europe and China’s net trade surpluses mean that, at least in economic terms, China and the EU “do not make logical partners” as they are both “fighting over a limited pool of demand”.

...“The EU has reasons to go more hawkish on China for its own strategic reasons – entirely unrelated to what the US wants,” Tordoir said.