The United States overtook China as Germany’s most important trading partner in the first quarter of this year, according to Reuters calculations based on official data from the Federal Statistical Office.

According to the data, Germany’s trade with the United States, the sum of exports and imports, totalled 63 billion euros ($68 billion) in the January-March period, while the figure for China was just under 60 billion euros.

With a volume of 253 billion euros, China was Germany’s largest trading partner for the eighth time in a row, a few hundred million dollars ahead of the US.

“While German exports to the US continued to rise due to the strong economy there, both exports to and imports from China fell,” said Commerzbank economist Vincent Stamer, explaining the change in the first quarter.

“China has moved up the value chain and is increasingly producing more complex goods itself, which it used to import from Germany. German companies are also increasingly producing locally instead of exporting goods from Germany to China,” Stamer said.

Germany has said it wants to reduce its trade with China, citing political differences and accusing Beijing of “unfair practices”. But Berlin has yet to take any major steps towards a policy of reducing dependency.

German imports of goods from China fell by almost 12 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, while German exports to China fell by just over 1 per cent, according to Juergen Matthes of the German economic institute IW.

“The fact that the US economy exceeded expectations, while the Chinese economy performed worse than many had hoped, probably contributed to this,” Matthes said.

Sales to the US currently account for around 10 percent of German goods exports. China’s share, on the other hand, has fallen below 6 per cent, Matthes said.

On the other hand, Dirk Jandura, head of the BGA trade association, said: “If the White House administration changes after the US elections in November and moves further in the direction of closing markets, this process could come to a standstill,” pointing out that the trend of Germany’s trade route shifting across the Atlantic could stop.

Turkey’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said state-owned gas network operator BOTAŞ signed an LNG trade agreement with ExxonMobil on Wednesday in a bid to diversify its sources.

Bayraktar said in a statement on social media platform X: “The US is one of the important countries from which we already receive LNG. With this agreement, which is intended to be long-term, we will take another step towards diversifying our resources,” Bayraktar said, adding that the agreement was signed in Washington.

Noting that Turkey is among the few countries in the world with its gasification capacity, the minister said, “We will continue to contribute to the energy security of our country and our region.

Bayraktar gave no further details of the deal. The energy ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

In an interview with the Financial Times in late April, Bayraktar said Turkey wanted to “build a new supply portfolio” in energy procurement and said it was in talks with US fossil fuel giant Exxon Mobil for 2.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) worth about $1.1 billion.

Bayraktar said Turkey was also in talks with other US natural gas producers for LNG deals, stressing that Turkey wanted to “diversify” its natural gas supplies before some of its contracts with Russia expire in 2025 and with Iran in 2026.

In addition to Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, Turkey imports LNG from Algeria, Qatar, the US and Nigeria.

Russia is the country’s largest gas supplier. Last year, more than 40 per cent of its consumption was met with gas from that country.

A new paper published by the World Bank suggests that the billions of dollars spent by rich countries on CO2-intensive products such as red meat and dairy products should be redirected towards more ‘climate-friendly’ options such as poultry, fruit and vegetables.

The bank argues that this is one of the most cost-effective ways to save the planet from ‘climate change’.

According to POLITICO, the ‘politically sensitive’ proposal is one of several the World Bank has put forward to reduce pollution from the agriculture and food sector, which it says is responsible for nearly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

We have to stop destroying the planet while we feed ourselves,’ Julian Lampietti, the World Bank’s director of global practice for agriculture and food, told POLITICO.

The work comes at a strategic diplomatic moment, as signatories to the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius prepare to update their climate plans by the end of 2025.

While the world needs to accelerate emissions cuts to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals, the World Bank wants officials to pay more attention to the agriculture and food sector, which it says has long been neglected and underfunded.

To be serious about achieving zero emissions by 2050 – a common goal for developed economies – countries need to invest $260 billion a year in these sectors, the report says. That is 18 times more than countries are currently investing.

The World Bank argues that governments could partially close this gap by redirecting subsidies for red meat and dairy towards lower-carbon alternatives. The Bank argues that this shift is one of the most cost-effective ways for rich countries to reduce demand for highly polluting foods, which are estimated to produce around 20 per cent of global agri-food emissions.

As a result, the climate impact will be reflected in the cost of food, he adds.

Full-cost pricing of animal-based foods to reflect their true planetary costs would make low-emissions food options more competitive,” the report says, suggesting that switching to plant-based diets could save twice as much planet-warming gases as other methods.

Meat and dairy production account for nearly 60 percent of agri-food emissions, according to the World Bank.

Lampietti warns against focusing too much on “what not to do” and suggests paying more attention to “what to do”. Food is a ‘deeply personal choice’, Lampietti said, adding that he fears the debate, which should be data-driven, could turn into a culture war.

The biggest concern is that people start using this as a political football,” he said.