China Positions Itself as an Opportunity Market for Alicante's Traditional Sectors Amid Trump's Tariffs

Donald Trump's tariff policy has turned the global trade scenario upside down. These tariffs directly impact Alicante's trade with the United States. Although not its main market by volume, in 2024, goods worth 446 million euros, 6.4% of the total were exported. This amount is growing year by year in one of the world's major markets.

Uncertainty has gripped Alicante companies trading with the United States. The Generalitat is already working on alternative markets, while the Alicante Chamber has scheduled trade missions to Central American and Asian countries, among others. It is precisely in this continent where Alicante can find an ally for sectors most dependent on this trade with the United States.

Thus, in a moment marked by the tension of the trade war, China positions itself as a very resolute market for Alicante products. This is explained to TodoAlicante by Julio Ceballos, an expert in international business in China, author of the essay 'Watching the Rice Grow' and 'The Star Calibrator', who presents the latter on Tuesday, May 19, at the Alicante Chamber.

Ceballos insists that "in a post-Trump scenario where Europe seeks rebalancing, traditional sectors of Alicante such as nougat, wine, or footwear can find in China a market thirsty for authenticity." However, despite the province finding a great alternative ally to the United States, the author explains that China "buys excellence, consistency, and strategy" and urges Alicante's business community to stop seeing China "as a distant threat and understand it as a market to be accessed with intelligence and patience."

In this regard, Ceballos assures that it is necessary to "build relationships, adapt products to their culture, and focus on quality, as European products still hold prestige there," and emphasizes that "those who understand their code succeed."

In this sense, the essay's author insists that "China is not a natural enemy of Europe" and reaffirms the need to ally with the Asian giant "not as subjects, but as geopolitical adults." Ceballos explains that while Washington "improvises with sanctions, threats, and tariff wars like a poker player bluffing; China plays chess, moving pieces with a 50-year vision."

Therefore, he urges the EU to "stop acting as a satellite of foreign powers" and highlights the need for "a cohesive, effective, autonomous, pragmatic, and non-ideological foreign policy," while affirming that "it's not about choosing sides."

In addition to relations with China, the essay presented at the Alicante Chamber aims to debunk certain myths related to the Asian country. For Ceballos, the vision of it "is contaminated and infantilized, we continue to look at China through Cold War lenses" and asserts that "we do not understand their model because we continue to project our prejudices onto a country that does not want to resemble or imitate us."

The expert, who claims that China "is an authoritarian system," defines the country as "the most successful strategic experiment of the 21st century" and highlights that its success lies in "not asking whether a policy is communist or capitalist, but whether it works and helps achieve its objectives effectively. Europe must learn to look strategically, not idealize."

In this sense, he emphasizes that the lesson should be "to recalibrate, not copy, as China does not provide an exportable model." The author insists: "The West can and must learn to reindustrialize with vision and invest in education and technology as if our lives depended on it, because they do."