WASHINGTON — The Europeans are formally rooting for President Donald Trump when he travels to Beijing for a state visit in mid-May to discuss relations with China, one of the top officials of the European Union told Breitbart News exclusively.
Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s Commissioner for Economy and Productivity and former Prime Minister of Latvia, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Tuesday near the White House “we share many of the concerns” that the United States has with China when asked if Europe is rooting for Trump when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Well, as regards to relations with China, we share many of the concerns with the U.S. including with imbalance in our trading relationship, including with China’s industrial overcapacities and non-market policies and practices, including China attempting to use our dependency for example on critical minerals like rare earths supplies as a leverage or choke point,” Dombrovskis further explained regarding China. “So we are engaged with the U.S. on many of those aspects I was mentioning. It is also among the big topics here for the IMF Spring Meetings — global economic imbalances is one of those topics — and they will be discussing in different forums this including directly with China. So there are many of the concerns which we are sharing and which we need to cooperate to address. Then economically I was mentioning the U.S. is EU’s largest trading partner. China is EU’s second largest trading partner. So also, obviously, there is lots at stake economically. So we are not pursuing decoupling. We are pursuing what you call de-risking, so continuing engagement but addressing imbalances, addressing unfair competition, and also finding a way how to address existing or potential dependencies from China.”
Trump is set to visit Beijing in mid-May to meet with Xi, a trip that was postponed from early April because of the war in Iran. Trump’s visit to China comes after more than a year of trade fights between the two sides over tariffs and more, and as Trump has now since Liberation Day a year ago inked trade deals with north of 85 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP) including with the European Union but also with Japan, South Korea, India, the United Kingdom, and many other nations.
Dombrovskis said the EU is committed to the deal Trump and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed last summer in Scotland when Trump was staying at his Turnberry resort there.
“Well, this deal has provided a degree of stability for EU-U.S. trade relations, and we think it’s very important because we are each other’s largest trading partners. EU-U.S, trade relationships are the largest in the world,” Dombrovskis said. “So we trade every year around 1.7 trillion euros. So there’s lots of stake economically. So this stability and predictability was much needed. There have been various twists and turns since then, which were affecting this process including President Trump trying to seize Greenland, including the Supreme Court striking down those regional Trump tariffs and so on and so forth. But from EU side, we are committed to the deal. We are moving forward. Also the European Parliament now is making progress, because European Parliament has to give the agreement the okay… In a sense, they have to greenlight it. And also we have reassurances from President Trump’s administration that also from their side, they are committed to this deal and ensuring the terms EU negotiated under this deal. So from both sides, the commitment is there, and we’re moving forward.”
Trump, in an interview with Breitbart News at Turnberry the morning after he signed the deal with von der Leyen, called it a “great deal for both” Europe and the United States.
Dombrovskis in his interview with Breitbart News on Tuesday morning said there is concern that the Russians, Iranians, and Chinese are possibly working together to upset the global economic order. He mentioned the European Union has made another aggressive commitment to supporting Ukraine with another 90 billion euros over the next two years. Dombrovskis is in Washington for the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group.
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