Stoeferle’s “German misery in one chart” (Incrementum/Destatis): Germany’s trade balance with China in investment goods — machinery, the Mittelstand’s home turf — ran a €1–1.5B/month surplus for 15 years and collapsed to a −€1.4B/month deficit by early 2026, a near-vertical flip. China no longer just assembles; it competes head-on in the capital goods Germany’s model is built on. Kobeissi’s companion stat: China is ~28% of global manufacturing value added (tripled since 2004) vs ~17% US, ~15% Eurozone, ~5% Japan.
The tension worth keeping: the same weeks, Schuldensuehner celebrated the DAX at a record ~26k with “every drawdown in Dax history is now history,” led by SAP, Rheinmetall, Infineon. Index and economy have decoupled — the DAX record is software, defense, and chips, while the export-machinery core quietly loses its China market. A market at highs is not evidence the underlying model works (and vice versa). Schuldensuehner’s own sequel makes it explicit: autos, chemicals and machinery are stuck 15–20% below their pre-Covid peaks, and the replacement engines Goldman proposes — IT services (+0.25pp annual growth), defence (+0.1pp), electrification — are rounding errors next to what’s fading.