A flashpoint is looming in the trade relationship between the European Union and China - and it’s one that could ignite a tit-for-tat escalation akin to that experienced between the US and China.
If the EU does go ahead and slap a duty on electric carmakers that China considers unreasonable, the Europeans have already been warned that China could retaliate. In the US, there’s a confluence of geopolitical wrestling, national security concerns, protectionism and the domestic politics of an election year intensifying the six-year-old trade war with China.
More than 6 per cent of the EU’s employment base is connected, directly or indirectly, with the auto industry.