China reclaims spot as prime German commerce accomplice from US – DW – 11/19/2025 | EUROtoday

China has once more overtaken the US to develop into Germany’s prime buying and selling accomplice, due to an increase in imports to Germany within the first three quarters of 2025.

This comes amid tariff tensions with each nations, albeit with Donald Trump’s commerce insurance policies most likely getting essentially the most consideration, and as German exports to each the core markets falter. Car gross sales suffered particularly.

What had been the core figures?

The authorities’s statistics workplace, Destatis, revealed corrected knowledge on Wednesday displaying a complete commerce quantity with China of €185.9 billion (roughly $215 billion) between January and September. That’s a rise of 0.6% in comparison with the identical interval final yr.

Meanwhile, commerce with the US was down 3.9% in comparison with the primary 9 months of 2024, standing at €184.7 billion.

China had usurped the US as Germany’s largest commerce accomplice in 2016 after which stayed there constantly, till it misplaced the highest spot final yr.

Imports to Germany from each nations rose, by 2.8% within the case of the US however by 8.5% from China.

Meanwhile, the worth of German exports fell in each instructions, down 12.3% to China and down 7.8% to the US.

But the US stays a extra profitable export marketplace for Germany general, with gross sales price €112.7 billion in comparison with €61.4 billion — which means Germany nonetheless has a commerce surplus with the US and a commerce deficit with China.

Indeed, the second most prolific importer of merchandise to Germany will not be the US, however the neighboring Netherlands, with only a slight edge over the US in third.

Further indicators of automobile commerce collapse

Exports of German automobiles and automobile components fell rather more sharply, amid tariff disputes with each nations and as China’s fast-growing automobile trade continues to cope with an increasing number of of its high-end home demand itself, on the expense of producers everywhere in the world.

Sales to the US dipped by €3.6 billion, or 13.9%, amid the introduction of upper 15% tariffs for imports from the EU, and after a short interval the place the tariffs rose from lower than 3% to roughly 27.5% within the first half of the yr after Trump’s return.

Meanwhile, gross sales to China dipped by €6.1 billion, or 35.9%. This comes because the EU and China wrangle over the excessive tariffs placed on Chinese electrical automobile gross sales in Europe.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn