Trump blasts German automakers' U.S. sales and threatens barriers
BERLIN -- German carmakers found themselves at the receiving end of
renewed attacks by President Donald Trump, who reportedly chided them
for selling too many vehicles in the U.S., contributing to a lopsided
German trade surplus that's hurting the U.S. economy.
"The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump told EU officials in a closed-door meeting, Der Spiegel
reported, citing unidentified attendees. "Look at the millions of cars
that they sell in the U.S. Terrible. We're going to stop that."
Trump has repeatedly criticized Germany's high trade surplus with the U.S. In a Bild newspaper interview in January, he threatened BMW with a 35 percent import duty for foreign-built cars sold in the country.
"If you go down Fifth Avenue everyone has a Mercedes-Benz in front of his house," he told Bild, while lamenting the lack of Chevrolets in Germany. General Motors has withdrawn the brand from Europe for some years.
German carmakers such as Daimler, Volkswagen Group and BMW have
responded to the attacks with a mix of defiance and mollification. BMW
CEO Harald Krueger, one of a small group of business leaders to
accompany German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her first trip to visit
Trump at the White House, has defended the importance of free trade and
noted that BMW's biggest plant worldwide is in Spartanburg, South
Carolina -- making the manufacturer the biggest exporter on a net basis
from the U.S.
(AutoNews.com)
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