European companies are being “taken hostage” in the escalating trade tensions between China and the United States, warns Jens Eskelund, Managing Director of Maersk China and President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
Speaking to Nikkei Asia, Eskelund said recent Chinese export controls on rare-earth minerals — key for electric vehicles and defense — are causing production delays in Europe, despite a tentative U.S.-China trade truce.
“China wants to avoid the U.S. getting their hands on these minerals through a third party,” Eskelund explained.
“But it doesn’t do anything good for China relations when European companies are caught in the middle.”
His remarks come just weeks before a high-level EU-China summit, which may face a chilly atmosphere. The EU recently cancelled a preparatory economic meeting and stepped up trade measures against China, prompting retaliatory investigations from Beijing.
Eskelund, who has spent nearly 30 years in China, says uncertainty is at its highest since the global financial crisis.
“We need a new model of cooperation where the benefits of trade are distributed more fairly,” he said, while cautioning he has “no big expectations” for the summit.
