00:00Well, Erik Solheim is former Undersecretary General of the United Nations and former Minister of International Development of Norway.
00:07Always great to have you on Global Business Europe.
00:11Let's talk about G7, where a big part of the conversation are these global trade imbalances.
00:17What does it tell us about how the world economy is changing?
00:23First of all, let's recognise that G7 seems to be an organisation very much looking for a purpose.
00:31It's well past its heydays.
00:33G7 was very important when the West dominated the world and when the West was unified.
00:40Now the West is not united and the West is not dominating the world.
00:44So I think we should look for other institutions to find solutions like the G20, the G2 when China and
00:50the United States meet, APEC, United Nations.
00:53There are so many other forums which are much more relevant to resolving global issues.
00:58And one of them, for sure, is trade imbalances.
01:01Now China is now a global leader in EVs, in batteries, in solar panels.
01:08Is the rest of the world still adjusting to that reality?
01:13Gratuler it is, but we should be very grateful to China because China is helping the world solving massive problems.
01:20Look, the one lesson every nation in the world has learned from the state of hormones is that you need
01:27to be energy independent.
01:28You cannot make your energy dependent on the state of hormones or volatile international oil markets.
01:34Well, how do you do that?
01:35Well, you go massively into solar, wind, hydropower.
01:38And in all these sectors, China is dominant.
01:41So China is, I mean, you will not be dependent on Chinese solar panels in the same way as you
01:47are dependent on oil flows.
01:51China is very much ahead on all these.
01:54China is now 90% or more of solar.
01:57The six largest wind companies in the world are all Chinese.
02:0270% of all batteries are made in China.
02:04And very simply, I visited Tongwei, the largest solar company in the world.
02:08And it was completely robotized.
02:11I didn't see one single worker in the enormous factory halls.
02:15It was all robots.
02:17There's nothing like that in the United States or Europe.
02:19And very simply, the rest of the world struggled to compete with China.
02:23But they need to step up, otherwise they will be left behind.
02:26You talk about stepping up.
02:27And Europe talks about strategic autonomy.
02:30It wants to be cheaper, quicker in terms of green technology, but also wants to protect its own industries.
02:36Can it realistically do that without China?
02:40Absolutely no.
02:41I mean, the opposite is much more true.
02:43You need many more partnerships with China.
02:45I mean, some Airbus officials said we need thousands of global, we need thousands of joint ventures in Europe between
02:54European companies and Chinese.
02:56Look, this was what China did when China was behind.
03:00It worked with the rest of the world to learn from the rest of the world.
03:03Now time has come for Europe to learn from China.
03:06And the most realistic way to do that is through joint ventures.
03:10And a very good example is the cooperation between Stellantis, the great European car maker, and Seattle, the big battery
03:18maker,
03:19which are now making a joint facility in Saragossa and Spain.
03:23But we need a lot more of this.
03:25Well, Trump is now threatening these huge tariffs on French wine.
03:29If countries become more defensive about trade, who stands to lose the most?
03:37Look, no one can trust whatever you agree to with the United States, because you can have a shining agreement
03:45today,
03:45and tomorrow Trump is throwing some tariffs at you, and that creates a complete distrust in the global system.
03:53And if we go into more of this in the future, everyone would lose.
03:58It's not like some would win and some would lose.
04:00Everyone would lose, because we will all be poorer.
04:03And in a poorer world, there will be more problems, maybe more conflicts.
04:06But for sure, every individual and every nation will lose from more trade wars and more trade tariffs.
04:16None of us want that.
04:17Well, it's always great to have your insight.
04:19Thank you so much.
04:20Eric Solheim.
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