OTOH, the more developed EU countries want the less developed countries to be reasonably well-off, so they can keep buying stuff from them. E.g. 56% of Germany's exports went to other EU countries in 2025. And, while Trump and Xi Jin Ping are around, that's only going to become more important...
Yeah, they're so uncompetitive that Trump had to introduce tariffs to keep them out. China is a different topic, but I wouldn't generally call German products uncompetitive...
The tariffs put on the US by Germany were higher than the other way around in some cases, even though the US wasn’t exporting such products in any significant amount.
