Ranked: The EU’s Biggest Trading Partners in 2026
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Key Takeaways
- China supplied nearly a quarter of all EU imports in Q1 2026, making it the bloc’s largest foreign supplier.
- The U.S. remained the EU’s biggest export market despite exports falling more than 30% from a year earlier.
- The EU runs a large trade deficit with China but a sizable surplus with the United States.
The European Union’s trade relationships reveal two very different economic realities: China is the bloc’s dominant source of imports, while the United States remains its largest export destination.
Using Q1 2026 data from Eurostat, this visualization ranks the EU’s biggest goods trading partners outside the bloc. Together, China, the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, and Türkiye account for more than half of the EU’s external goods trade.
China Creates the EU’s Largest Trade Gap
China supplied €145.3 billion worth of goods to the EU in Q1 2026, nearly three times the value of EU exports to China over the same period.
The resulting trade deficit of nearly €100 billion was the largest among the bloc’s major trading relationships and underscores Europe’s continued reliance on Chinese manufacturing.
This data table lists major EU trade partners based on their total imports and exports in Q1 2026.
| Trade Partner | Import Amount (€B) | Export Amount (€B) | Surplus/Deficit (€B) |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 145.3 | 47.6 | -97.7 |
| USA | 85.9 | 119.4 | 33.5 |
| UK | 39.5 | 88.7 | 49.2 |
| Switzerland | 36.7 | 57.2 | 20.5 |
| Turkiye | 24.6 | 27.1 | 2.5 |
| Total | 627.8 | 640.5 | 12.7 |
For the EU, trade relations with China are particularly sensitive as the bloc seeks to protect its domestic industries from rising Chinese competition. Cheaper Chinese cars, for example, have put pressure on the German auto industry, particularly in the electric vehicle space.
Beijing has responded to some EU trade policies with tariffs on key European exports like pork, wine, or liquor, actions that affect major EU member states including France, Spain, and Italy.
The U.S. Remains Europe’s Top Customer
While China dominates EU imports, the United States remains the bloc’s largest export market. EU exports to the U.S. totaled €119.4 billion in Q1 2026, compared with €85.9 billion in imports, giving Europe a goods trade surplus of €33.5 billion.
Even so, transatlantic trade has cooled. EU exports to the U.S. were down more than 30% from Q1 2025, reflecting the impact of renewed tariff disputes and a more uncertain trading environment between the two economies.
Transatlantic ties between the EU and U.S. have come under pressure in 2025 and 2026. The U.S. imposed sweeping tariffs on EU imports in early 2025 to address its deficit with Brussels, and the two sides only worked out a deal following months of negotiations. In early 2026, tariffs resumed as the U.S. criticized the slow pace of implementation.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has also used tariffs in unrelated matters, such as threatening tariffs on certain large EU countries after they protested U.S. assertions of sovereignty over Greenland, which is the territory of EU member state Denmark.
A New Relationship With London
Beyond EU-U.S. and EU-China relations, the 27-member bloc must also balance relations with other European economies, including Switzerland, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom.
The last of these has proven the most essential, partly because of the size of the UK economy, but also because of the UK’s prior status as an EU country. Following the UK’s withdrawal in 2020, subsequent British governments have attempted to maximize cooperation with the bloc, which imported €39.5 billion of goods from the UK while exporting €88.7 billion to British shores.
Ten years on from the vote that led to Brexit, rumblings have persisted in both Brussels and London that a future British government might seek to rejoin the EU. Prior to departure, the UK was the second-largest EU member state by nominal GDP.
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