In January at the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared to the middle powers of the world that “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
That’s the position the European Union has found itself in over the past three days, as the United States and China have held an exceptional summit in Beijing.
At the gathering, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed countless issues critical to EU interests, such as rare earths, Chinese electric vehicles, the war in Iran and global tariff policy — but without an EU seat in sight.
“By not being there, the EU just has to live with these outcomes that will fundamentally impact them, but in which they don’t have a say,” Arthur Leichthammer, a policy fellow in geoeconomics at the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin told me.
This morning Brussels time, Trump was wheels-up in Beijing and headed back to the U.S. While the president declared that China had agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets, the outcome on other issues important to the EU was less clear, such as whether the flow of rare earths will continue and what’s next in the U.S.-China trade war.
Rare earths are an area of contention between the U.S. and China where Europe is particularly exposed, according to Leichthammer. Beijing holds 70% of global rare earths production, and short-lived export controls put in place in October 2025 nearly shut down European factories, exposing the extent of the dependency.
To protect itself from the vagaries of the U.S.-China relationship, the EU could further de-risk itself, but Leichthammer said steps so far had been incremental. On rare earths, protections against Chinese cars or even dealing with the “Second China Shock” caused by a skyrocketing trade imbalance between China and Europe, Leichthammer said the EU didn’t have a coordinated strategy — nor a powerful top-down system of government that could quickly pull deterrence levers.
“The EU needs to be clear about its economic interests, and negotiate based on that interest,” he said. “However, right now the EU doesn’t have a coherent industrial or trade policy, so there’s little to negotiate on.”
If Europe no longer wants to be item one on the U.S.-China menu, Brussels needs to do its homework and develop tools that give the bloc more maneuverability in any future negotiations. Otherwise, the EU will remain on Trump and Xi’s chopping block.
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