Polish entrepreneurs who try to enter the Chinese market know that the matter is not simple. Even computer games do not have a slightly there and for years the process of being launched on sale on a market of 1.4 billion consumers is underway. We have one of the world's largest trade deficits with the Middle Kingdom And nothing has changed in this matter for years. According to Chinese customs data, he amounted to last year. As much as $ 35 billion According to CSO data, taking into account the country of origin of goods It is up to $ 51.5 billion.
We were in this respect At the 10th place in the world in a negative ranking of deficits with China and the third in Europe After: the Netherlands (-72 billion dollars) and Great Britain (-59 billion dollars). According to our calculations, in relation to GDP (4.1 percent of GDP) it is the fifth worst negative balance in Europe after the Netherlands (5.9 percent of GDP), Malta (14.7 percent of GDP), Belarus (6.5 percent) and Greece (4.3 percent).
It would be an argument for imitating Donald Trump's policy and impose high duties on China. Only that first of all we have no independence in customs policy, because it has it in, among others The European Commission, and secondly, we use the situation in a different way. Yes, a lot of goods from China come to Poland, but a large part of this imports are then sent to the markets of the entire Union and are part of the statistics of our export, but to, for example, Germany and the Czech Republic. An example is the Chinese manufacturer of TCL TVs: The import of parts goes to Poland, TVs are made in factories in Poland, and then exports.
$ 263 billion USA deficit with China
Well, the USA has the largest nominal deficit in trade with China. Last year, in trade in goods, it amounted to $ 295 billion.and if you include services, although it has decreased, it only to $ 263 billion. In accordance with the economy, it accounted for 1.2 percent. GDP.
In US services they have a surplus. AND In the size of a negative balance of mutual turnover, the basic reason for the last decisions on imposing duties is by the administration of Donald Trump. As a side note, in addition to the retaliation of American goods, China also directed a trade war in the direction of American goods, which is also provided by plans to limit the number of film premieres from Hollywood in China.
And this gigantic US deficit in trade with the Middle Kingdom is not a matter only last year. Since in 2005 he pierced $ 200 billion, he never went below this value. In other words, Over the past 20 years, China has built the production power of their economy mainly on trade unevennie with the United States.
Now access to the American market has become a weapon in the hands of President Donald Trump, because not only China has become addicted to shipping goods to the USA. It is similar with Europe's economic powers.
The EU economy lives from the USA, although Poland is not
Mexico stood in second place in the largest US deficits with other markets, with which the minus amounted to $ 179 billion. (goods and services) in 2024, a The next one is the European Union from $ 161 billion.
In the Union they used the most Germany with whom the US had last year $ 90 billion deficit and Italy with $ 48 billion It is mainly about exports from Europe of passenger cars.
Poland will not quite rightly be right, although we have a commercial deficit in goods with the United States. However, customs are a consequence of our belonging to the customs union, which is the European Union. On the other hand, if you sum up together with the services, in 2023 (the latest available GUS data) we had a surplus of $ 1.5 billion. And we record the surplus with a break for only one year from 2016 with maximum in 2021 ($ 2.7 billion).
Great Britain, which, like Poland, records deficits in trade in goods from the USA, has been charged only 10 % duties, which can be treated rather as alignment in terms of VAT. The British Deputy Minister of Finance Darren Jones in an interview on Sky News even called it “dividend from Brexit”, because the Union got a 20 % duties.
Apart from Poland, the Netherlands will wrongly hurt. Although her commercial deficit from the USA is more due to the fact that ships with American gas and pus come to its ports, which then go to the markets of the entire old continent.
VAT hidden customs
Immediately outside the podium of the largest commercial deficits of the USA was Vietnam ($ 122 billion), which results in part of the activities of Chinese companies in this market. Let's not be surprised that it was Vietnam that was burdened with larger duties than the rest of the world outside of China, and although he declares that he is ready to go to the zero stake with the states, the Trump administration believes that this is not a sufficient move. The White House points out that not only the duties on American products are the problem, but also VAT and theft of intellectual property.
Trump also mentions VAT and also in the context of Europe. This tax may seem only a form of collecting revenues for the budget, but It also plays the role of a customs barrier. Companies from outside the Union or Great Britain, exporting goods to these markets, cannot deduct the VAT on the individual stages of creating the product, and such such companies operating internally on given markets can do such a thing. If VAT in Poland is 23 percent, it means that each country from outside the Union pays an informal duty of similar size.
If it works in two directions, i.e. if two sides have VAT, it's still half poverty. But the USA does not apply VAT, but only the retail tax, who pays on equally on goods produced in the USA and abroad. The duties are to equalize this difference. This is why the duties also got in the UK, although she records trade deficits from the USA, but smaller duties than the rest of the world.
Author: Jacek Frączyk, Business Insider Polska editor
