Importing more from China
$656.2 billion
The value of goods that China sold to Europe in 2025, an 89% increase from 2015.
Officials in Europe are undertaking new efforts on a number of fronts to protect industry, including chemical manufacturing, from low-cost imports that have dodged trade rules.
Spain, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, which are among the largest chemical-producing countries in Europe, have drafted a joint paper proposing tougher policies to defend their industries against “the rise of unfair trade practices” by countries such as China. The South China Morning Post reports that the draft paper, which has yet to be circulated publicly, pushes for a more aggressive European response to “systemic and structural overcapacity.”
Europe imported $656.2 billion worth of goods overall from China in 2025, an 89% increase from 2015, according to data published by the European Commission (EC). In 2024, the last year for which chemical data were available, Europe imported about $66.6 billion worth of chemicals from China—roughly double the amount of 10 years earlier.
In the draft paper, according to news reports, the four countries, along with Lithuania, call on the EC to combat dumping of goods by introducing faster emergency tariffs, broader safeguards, and new powers to stop companies from evading trade rules. Circulation of the draft paper precedes an EC discussion on Chinese trade scheduled for May 29.
Germany, Europe’s largest chemical producer, did not sign the paper, but this week it sent a delegation to China led by its economy minister, Katherina Reiche. The delegation includes representatives of the German company BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer.
Having just inaugurated a $10 billion petrochemical complex in Zhanjiang, China, BASF has a foot in both camps. “Blanket trade barriers that would isolate Europe, and protectionism are not the answer to structural challenges,” the company says in an email. “However, in the face of unfair trade practices, the EU should take adequate trade defense measures and send clear signals to protect its own industry.”
The draft paper’s emergence is the latest indicator that European trade policy toward China is hardening. On March 4, the EU proposed the Industrial Accelerator Act, an industrial policy framework designed to rebuild Europe’s manufacturing base, speed decarbonization, and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers.
Paul Hodges, chairman of the consulting firm New Normal, flags Europe’s toughening position on trade in the latest edition of The pH Report, the company’s newsletter. In response to the stiffer stance, China “needs to reposition itself as a reliable partner in the green transition and abandon the temptation to use its current supply chain dominance to threaten potential partners,” Hodges writes.
Europe’s efforts so far haven’t had much impact. The EC introduced the Critical Raw Materials Act in 2024 to prevent China from exerting political and economic control by limiting supply of materials such as lithium and rare earth elements. But according to a new report by the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, China’s control of the world’s lithium supply chain is on course to increase from about 33% in 2020 to 39% in 2030.
“While production growth is becoming more geographically diverse, ownership remains concentrated among a relatively small group of companies, mostly led by China,” Allan Pedersen, Wood Mackenzie’s research director for energy transition and battery materials, says in an email.
In response to a campaign led by the European Chemical Industry Council, a trade association, EC president Ursula von der Leyen in February pledged a series of measures aimed at protecting Europe’s chemical industry from unfair global competition. Already this year, the EC has begun several antidumping cases against countries for unfairly selling chemicals in Europe. And in November 2025, the chemical maker Ineos filed 10 antidumping lawsuits.
