PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron wants the G7 summit to converge on the need to tackle a flood of subsidized Chinese exports that is disrupting global markets, but even before leaders meet, it’s clear that credible action is one deliverable he won’t be able to land.
A discussion on global imbalances on Monday, the first day of the gathering Macron is hosting in Evian, is unlikely to deliver answers to the problem, with Beijing curling its lip at the G7 initiative and the Europeans and the Americans diverging on how to contain China’s $1.2 trillion trade surplus.
Macron on Thursday chaired what was billed as a “World Convergence for Growth Summit” to discuss macroeconomic imbalances between representatives of G7 countries and Beijing.
But this was no face-to-face meeting; it was a video conference that was joined by only a minority of G7 leaders — including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, who has no direct responsibility for trade policy, dialed in and delivered the party line on the benefits of “true multilateralism.”
Macron’s office was quick to describe the video call with China as a victory in itself, with one Elysée official describing it as evidence that “this G7 summit is already a success.”
Participants agreed on the need to address global imbalances and continue discussions at the G20 level with support from the International Monetary Fund, the Elysée said.
If the main outcome was agreeing that a problem exists and should be discussed elsewhere, it raises the question as to why Macron chose to make it a centerpiece of a forum where China is not even a member.
“It most definitely looks like they found it hard to agree on much,” said economist Agathe Demarais, who co-chairs the T7 group of experts that advises the G7 presidency. She predicted no breakthrough on taming China at the lakeside summit in Evian-les-Bains.
“Obviously China doesn’t have any interest in engaging with the G7 about this,” said Demarais, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She added that China was “not going to change [its] entire economic model to make the French G7 presidency happy.”
During the call, Zhang “called for prioritizing development, improving global governance and promoting inclusive growth of the world economy,” according to a Chinese readout of the video conference that made no explicit mention of tackling macroeconomic imbalances that Western governments blame for declining industrial output and employment.
A non-government official briefed on preparations for the G7 summit saw the French presidency’s outreach as an “olive branch” to China, but acknowledged that the G7 was not the best format to put pressure on China to change its trade policy.
In delegating Zhang to join the call, Beijing also played the protocol card to send the message that it didn’t take the discussion seriously.“Tasking a vice-PM of course scales down the importance given to the issue,” said Elvire Fabry, a trade expert at the Jacques Delors Institute think tank in Paris.
Europe hardens its line
In its mediation role as G7 president, France has avoided publicly calling out China, framing the discussion around the neutral concept of global imbalances and noting that the U.S. also has a role to play by reducing its budget deficit and the EU by boosting investment.
However, France has traditionally been the most vocal supporter of EU measures to tackle the bloc’s trade deficit with China, which widened to €360 billion last year and grew further in the first quarter of 2026.
Paris has led a call by five EU countries for new trade defense weapons to tackle China’s export dominance, and Macron recently urged the EU to give itself stronger, U.S.-style trade powers to confront China.
“It’s not protectionism, it is fair protection,” the French President told tire-factory workers on a visit to his home town Amiens this week, calling for tariffs and European preference measures to tackle Chinese competition.
Even Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, which has in the past opposed confronting Beijing to avoid exposing its export-oriented economy to Chinese retaliation, now sounds more open to tougher action on China.
The European Commission has pledged action to fix “what is becoming an unsustainable trade deficit with China,” as EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič put it earlier this month. Those discussions will be on the agenda at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday right after the G7 summit.
But there’s no sign that Europe and the U.S. are ready to coordinate their policies on China, amid persistent transatlantic trade tensions.
“If they want to do the kinds of things we’ve done, you know, they’re welcome to do that,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said late last month. “I’m not really going to slow my roll to wait for them to see if we can coordinate on something.”
Daniel Desrochers and Koen Verhelst contributed to this report. This report has been updated. ]]>