Orbán envisions a war between China and the EU

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has criticised the European Union’s tariffs on China’s biggest electric vehicle manufacturers as “bad and ill-thought-out”, warning that the measure could trigger a trade war.

Trade war between China and the EU?

Orbán said the “biggest aim and the strongest hope” was that the tariffs would only be temporary and would be lifted after four months.

He said the European Commission had justified the introduction of the tariffs with the need to protect the interests of European manufacturers, adding, at the same time, that the leaders of the major carmakers he had spoken to ahead of the start of Hungary’s EU presidency had strongly opposed the measure.

“These kinds of bad and ill-thought-out decisions can push economic life towards a trade war”, the prime minister warned, saying this “decision by the bureaucrats” could trigger counter-measures from the East.

Hungary’s interests, he said, lay in averting a trade war, because “we make our living by being able to sell what we produce in Hungary all over the world”. “But if there’s going to be a trade war then we won’t be able to sell the products produced in Hungary, and this could eventually threaten jobs,” he added.