17
Jun
2026
Watch
Preparation of the European Council (joint debate)
Mr President, let us be honest about who we are dealing with. When China wants its leverage, it weaponised rare earths, choking the supply of materials that our industries, our defence and our green transition depend on. When we moved to reform our cybersecurity, Beijing threatened our businesses. The pattern is always the same – cooperation is offered when we are useful and pressure is applied the moment we act in our own interest. We keep answering this with dialogue; they answer with coercion. A partner who only respects strength will keep pushing until they meet some, so we should make their divide and conquer tactics carry a real cost. We should impose tariffs where China dumps and distorts, we should make access to our markets strictly reciprocal, and we should pursue China through the WTO when it breaks the rules and deindustrialises the European Union in the process. China's state-run economy is in desperate need of export markets. The US has closed theirs, we are the only large and rich buyer left. If we do not use this immense leverage and instead let large companies relocate ...