Next week a new German government led by conservative Friedrich Merz will be sworn in. As I’ve argued on these pages for years, Germany is the key to a more united and effective European approach to China. Under Merz’s predecessors Olaf Scholz and Angela Merkel, Berlin often put the narrow, short-term interests of a handful of large German companies above the long-term economic and strategic priorities of the country, and of Europe as a whole. This was evident last year when Scholz worked tirelessly behind the scenes to try (unsuccessfully) to torpedo the European Commission’s anti-subsidy trade case against imported electric vehicles from China.
Watching China in Europe—May 2025 | German Marshall Fund of the United States
