{"id":293730,"date":"2025-04-21T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=293730"},"modified":"2025-04-19T12:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T11:34:13","slug":"spains-prime-minister-leads-the-eus-rapprochement-with-china-despite-pressure-from-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/04\/spains-prime-minister-leads-the-eus-rapprochement-with-china-despite-pressure-from-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Prime Minister Leads the EU\u2019s Rapprochement with China Despite Pressure from Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

China-EU relationship – Photo: VCG<\/p><\/div>\n

15 Apr 2025 – Xi recalled that China and the EU are \u201cfirm defenders\u201d of free trade and that \u201cthere are no winners in a tariff war.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brussels is seeking to diversify relations with other powers due to the threat of economic recession. For this reason, Spain\u2019s Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez is leading the European Union\u2019s rapprochement with China in an effort to expand markets and reduce the trade deficit. While S\u00e1nchez says the rapprochement \u201cisn\u2019t against anyone\u201d and Beijing says it places bilateral ties \u201cat the forefront,\u201d Washington criticizes it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSpain is a deeply pro-European country that sees China as a partner of the European Union,\u201d S\u00e1nchez assured Chinese President Xi Jinping<\/strong> during their meeting, where he emphasized that Spanish foreign policy \u201cis not against anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the Spanish prime minister\u2019s third official visit to China in just two years, the signing of two export protocols (on pork products and cherries) and various agreements on scientific, technological, educational, and film matters was announced. Previously, S\u00e1nchez met with representatives of major Chinese companies in the automotive, battery, and green energy sectors that he hoped would invest in Spain.<\/p>\n

On the eve of Xi\u2019s meeting with S\u00e1nchez, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson\u00a0Lin Jian<\/strong>\u00a0stated that bilateral relations with Spain are \u201cat the forefront\u201d of its ties with EU member states.<\/p>\n

Under the current geopolitical conditions, political dialogue can be cultivated to strengthen the relationship between China and the EU.<\/p>\n

The US-provoked tariff war and the reciprocal responses from China led to a global stock market collapse and investor panic, leading to US President Donald Trump\u00a0<\/strong>announcing a temporary (90-day) suspension\u00a0of tariffs on those countries (around 75) that requested negotiations with Washington. Faced with this new scenario, the EU, which on April 9 had approved the imposition of a series of 25% tariffs on nearly 1,700 US products, suspended its application for the same period and announced its willingness to enter negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf negotiations are not satisfactory, our countermeasures will kick in,\u201d European Commission President\u00a0Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>\u00a0clarified.<\/p>\n

TO CONTINUE READING Go to Original – globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Apr 2025 – Xi recalled that China and the EU are \u201cfirm defenders\u201d of free trade and that \u201cthere are no winners in a tariff war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":293733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[244,1268,435,250,3465,249,70,75],"class_list":["post-293730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflict-resolution-mediation","tag-china","tag-european-union","tag-free-trade","tag-spain","tag-tariffs","tag-trump","tag-usa","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293730"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293738,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293730\/revisions\/293738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}