EU trade chief heads to Beijing Thursday for two-day make-or-break trade talks

EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will head to Beijing on Thursday for two days of make-or-break meetings with Chinese officials aimed at staving off a trade war, Arab News reported.

Sefcovic will meet Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao for the second session of the Trade and Investment Council, which he will co-chair. Brussels wants movement on the management of Chinese exports to the bloc, European access to the Chinese market and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths, EU spokesman Olof Gill said.

The EU’s trade deficit in goods with China hit around €360bn in 2025. Sefcovic raised the stakes in the summer, warning Brussels expected “tangible results by October”, while European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has warned Beijing the bloc will deploy “all tools” at its disposal to rebalance the relationship.

Experts cautioned against expecting a breakthrough. “There may be a few crumbs, but I would not expect any kind of major breakthrough,” Penny Naas of the German Marshall Fund told AFP, while CEIBS professor Zhu Tian predicted “agreements on some specific issues, rather than any broad settlement”. Channel News Asia noted Brussels is separately preparing new trade-defence tools for December, which Beijing has threatened to retaliate against.