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.
