The summit’s agenda spanned issues vital to European economic stability, yet the EU possessed no seat at the negotiating table. Arthur Leichthammer, a geoeconomics fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, warns that the bloc must now grapple with outcomes it had no hand in shaping. This exclusion is particularly acute regarding rare earth minerals, where Beijing maintains 70% of global production. The volatility of these supply chains, underscored by the October 2025 export controls, leaves European factories vulnerable to decisions made exclusively in Washington and Beijing.
In section EU
Europe faces geopolitical irrelevance after US-China summit
As Donald Trump and Xi Jinping conclude their high-stakes summit in Beijing, the European Union finds itself sidelined from critical discussions on rare earths, electric vehicles, and global trade. By absenting itself from these negotiations, Brussels risks becoming an object of policy rather than a primary player in the global order.
Despite the clear risks, the EU lacks a unified industrial or trade strategy to counter the current economic imbalance. Efforts to de-risk have remained incremental, hampered by a decentralized governance structure that struggles to pull effective deterrence levers. Without a coherent approach to its own economic interests, the bloc remains trapped in a reactive posture. Unless Brussels develops robust tools for negotiation and strategic autonomy, it will continue to face the consequences of a U.S.-China relationship where Europe is increasingly treated as a byproduct of their competition rather than a sovereign partner.
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