The European Union, Mediterranean Africa and the Chinese tariff exemption

Description

The European Union is the dominant, long-established trading partner of the five Mediterranean African countries, with durable, treaty-based, duty-free access. The temporary, undifferentiated tariff exemption granted by China, worth only USD 80–110 million, cannot match this. Given the twenty-five-fold export gap and the prohibitive cost of freight from China to North Africa, the Chinese tariff exemption will leave EU-Mediterranean African trade essentially unaffected in the short term, at least. The exemption announced by China in February 2026 is not intended to function as a commercial strategy, but rather as a geopolitical gesture.