Development of German exports in 2025 by country

Regarding the USA, this is mainly due to the aggressive tariff policy of the Trump administration. In the case of China, many factors play a role, including increased efficiency of Chinese suppliers in some sectors, but also unfair distortions of competition through state subsidies and an undervalued yuan exchange rate against the Euro.

The slump in German goods exports to the USA and China alone dragged down the rate of change in total German goods exports in the first three quarters by more than 1.5 percentage points compared with the same period last year, with the USA accounting for minus 0.81 percentage points and China for minus 0.74 percentage points. Nevertheless, total German goods exports to all countries rose slightly by 0.25 per cent during this period. This is mainly due to the fact that German goods exports to Europe (the EU and neighbouring countries such as Switzerland, the UK and Norway) rose moderately, albeit by just under 3 per cent. Because European export partners currently account for almost 70 per cent of German goods exports, the only moderate growth in goods exports to Europe is pushing up the rate of change in total German goods exports by almost 2 percentage points. The EU alone is making a positive contribution to growth of over 1.5 percentage points, which almost completely offsets the combined negative contributions of the USA and China. Among the European countries, Poland, Switzerland and Spain are each contributing around 0.3 percentage points to the total export growth, meaning that together they more than offset the negative growth contributions of the USA or China, respectively.

In addition, stronger growth in German services exports is also having a compensatory effect. This is evident from a look at the foreign trade data in the national accounts. Total German exports of goods and services have therefore performed better than German goods exports only. This applies in a nominal view, but also in real terms when adjusted for price changes, which is relevant for economic growth.

However, despite the above-mentioned compensating effects of rising goods exports to EU countries and relatively dynamic services exports, German real exports of goods and services declined sightly be 0.7 percent in the first three quarters of 2025 compared to the first three quarters of 2024 - which implies a small drag on Germany’s economic growth in 2025.