German foreign trade relations: trends of the past decade

The article analyzes the most significant aspects of the evolution of foreign trade relations of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) for the period 2012-2021 - before and after the introduction of sanctions by the European Union against Eastern European states, including the Russian Federation, and counter-sanctions by the Russian Federation. The presented study is based on the latest materials from the IMF, UNCTAD and the German Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt; abbr. StBA, Destatis). Recently published official and author's data calculated on their basis made it possible to analyze the main shifts in the dynamics and geographical structure of Germany's foreign trade turnover over the past decade. The author shows that the current trends were formed under the significant influence of both changes in the commodity markets, ongoing trade conflicts, sanctions confrontation between western countries and the Russian Federation, and other destabilizing factors, among which were the difficulties in the process of recovering the world economy after the crisis shocks of 2020 due to large-scale spread of a new viral infection. It should be taken into account that the identified shifts in Germany’s foreign trade activities became a reality long before the aggravation of the Ukrainian situation that began in the first months of 2022, provoked by the United States to solve major geo-economic problems, including more effective implementation of the «disconnection’s paradigm» of the EU member states and Russia. The article presents the latest statistical materials, the author's calculated data, which are introduced into domestic scientific circulation for the first time.