Last month while the US administration confirmed it would apply additional tariffs on steel and aluminium from Canada, Mexico and European countries Chinese President Xi Jinping decided to cut import tariffs from the EU. From next month, Beijing's trade barriers on some European goods, such as fashion, cosmetics, shoes, and luxury, will be decreased by 50 %.
As a consequence, EU markets will benefit from China's import duties reduction on consumer goods over the medium term. European companies could export more products, as those goods will be less expensive in China.
In 2017, one third of European luxury goods were bought by Chinese people. And the import from the EU of fashion and luxury goods is also related to China's development of tourism, which will increase over the next few years. It will be easy to see the relationship between Beijing's import duties reduction and EU export increase. Once again China's President is showing his country how it will become more connected to global markets.