John Whelan: Trade tensions threaten Ireland's booming exports 

The escalating trade rhetoric can easily degenerate into a full-blown trade war, ranging across many industries and creating chaos along the supply chain form Ireland to China

China's Ministry of Commerce announced the opening of an anti-dumping investigation into certain dairy products imported from the EU.

Chinese electric vehicles are winning a bigger share of the market in Europe. Customers around Europe, including Ireland, attracted by the competitive prices and design, pushed the demand up. Most do not care or know about the Chinese government subsidies that keep the prices down and pump-up exports into the EU.

However, increasingly the rapid rise in Chinese car imports, now threatens the viability of the vast EU motor car manufacturing industry, creating a major political storm in Brussels.