The hole is dangerously hollow

France records a new flight of the deficit in its foreign trade: a. Meanwhile, hole of 43 billion euros in total in the first half of 2025. Therefore, The bill is increasing months after month. Moreover,

It is no longer a question of knowing if we will break a record, this is acquired. However, The real question is what magnitude will be at the end hole dangerously hollow of the year. What exactly is the trade balance? This is the difference between the amount of our exports and that of our imports. When we export our products abroad, we bring money back to France. When you import goods, you bring the money out to buy these goods, thus supplying our deficit.

The figures published Thursday August 7 by customs are impressive. Our trade deficit in the first half amounts to 43 billion euros, 4.5 billion more than the same period last year.

It is first explained by the drop in the energy bill: we have exported less electricity. and as the energy prices fell, we won less at the change, the double penalty, in a way. The aeronautical sector has also sealed our trade deficit with, in particular, less aircraft sales. Airbus had a hard time keeping the delivery rates of devices to its international customers.

At the hole dangerously hollow same time, we imported more drugs, which accentuated the imbalance of our trade. A sign of our loss of sovereignty in this sector. imports of pharmaceutical products have reached a historic record, mainly from China. Imports of pharmaceutical products from Beijing have more than doubled in value at 1 billion 100 million between January. June this year against 500 million in the first half of 2024.

On the other hand, the customs surcharge announced by Donald Trump are not responsible for these bad figures. Customs. which depend on the Ministry of Economy and Finance, recognize that the impact has been limited so far because most of the announced customs duties have not yet entered into force. What worries the government because. once the surcharges have been applied, this is likely to lead our exports even more, and therefore weigh down our trade deficit.

The year promises to be bad. In hole dangerously hollow an interview with the newspaper The world From Thursday. August 7, the Minister of Foreign Trade, Laurent Saint-Martin, talks about a “real alert signal “. But this is. also and above all the proof that the French productive fabric is sick: too low employment rate, too expensive labor cost, penalizing taxation, administrative heaviness … Our exporting SMEs do not do it anymore. their loss of competitiveness knocks them out on the international scene and we pay the price a little more every day. Here we see the urgent need of real and serious structural reforms.