gotchanewsdaily.com 
On the one hand, the European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen has taken a more hawkish stance on China, and it calls the shots on trade policy. Brussels has taken several hostile steps targeting Beijing, including imposing duties on imports of subsidized EVs, launching a series of trade defense probes against China in the last year and pushing EU capitals to screen foreign investment in sensitive tech.
On the other hand, some EU countries, such as Germany, Hungary, Spain and Slovakia, don’t want to anger China, on which their economies heavily rely, and have sought to curb the Commission’s economic security ambitions.
In an apparent olive branch to Beijing just days before Trump’s inauguration, António Costa, the president of the European Council (which represents the interests of the EU member countries’ governments), agreed with Xi to hold an EU-China summit in Brussels in early May.
So much for unity among the EU’s institutions, let alone its 27 governments.
“The EU is already stuck in a very difficult position between the U.S. and China. It’s trying to have some sort of a middle-ground approach toward China compared to the U.S.’s more hawkish position,” said Agathe Demarais, a geoeconomics senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“Under Trump, we can definitely expect a hardening of U.S. positions vis-à-vis China. At the same time, this will put the EU in a very difficult position because de-risking isn’t exactly happening. The EU is just as reliant on China as it used to be. It’s actually more reliant on China in some sectors,” she added.
