Foreign trade falls into the competency of the European Union (EU), with the European Commission representing 27 member states and a common market of 450 million people. The EU – and by proxy Germany – is a global player in trade, economically on an equal footing with the United States and China. Germany and the EU are highly interconnected in global value chains and have profited from a transparent and rules-based global trading system, guaranteed for decades by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both therefore have an interest in the promotion and reform of an the existing open global trading system.
This article was originally published as part of the Berlin Perspectives Project by the iep Institut für Europäische Politik on September 22,2025. You can read the full version here.
