EU seeks initial Chinese action on trade gap by early October

The European Union is done with polite suggestions. Brussels has set an early October deadline for China to deliver initial commitments on reducing a bilateral trade deficit that hit €360.6 billion ($412 billion) in 2025, a figure that grew another 9% in the first half of 2026. To put that in perspective, the EU is hemorrhaging roughly €1 billion per day to China in net goods trade. How the deadline came together EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has been the point person on what Brussels is framing as a results-or-else approach. A ministerial meeting in Brussels on June 29, 2026, established a new framework called the EU-China Trade and Investment Consultations, or TIC. The mechanism is designed to produce measurable outcomes rather than the kind of diplomatic communiqués that read well and change nothing. The TIC platform focuses specifically on trade balance and export controls. EU leaders gave the Commission a clear mandate in June 2026: either deliver results through this new channel or start developing additional trade-defense tools. Where the imbalance hurts most The €360.6 billion deficit in 2025 represented a 15% jump from 2024, and the trajectory in 2026 has only steep...