The US is still a very large and attractive market for European exporters, and it would at the very least substantially least hurt Europeans if they had to fully substitute the US with China as a trade partner.
To your point about the US market, I would put forth the size of China, India, and Africa as import markets for Europe. The population of the US is ~343M, ~745M is Europe, while that of China, India, and Africa combined is ~4.6B (as of this comment, rough proxy for total addressable markets). Admittedly the latter are at various stages of development, but I am of a strong opinion they can replace the US considering demographics, proximity, rate of development and purchasing power increasing, etc. International equities have already outperformed the S&P500 this year, so this may happen faster than we might expect. China is not as quite as wealthy as the US, but India and Africa are the last of global emerging markets and where the economic growth future of the world is. Do you configure and target your export economy for growing markets? Or declining markets?
Citations:
https://bsky.app/profile/carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3m... | https://archive.today/P2HxS ("International stocks are outperforming the S&P 500 by the widest margin in 16 years.") - November 12th, 2025
Goldman Strategists See US Stocks Lagging All Peers Next Decade - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-12/goldman-s... | https://archive.today/aINUx - November 12th, 2025
How the Rest of the World Is Moving on From Trump’s ‘America First’ - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-11-15/the-wo... | https://archive.today/m67tK - November 15th, 2025