"Look at the millions of cars they’re selling in the US. Terrible. We will stop this,” Trump reportedly said of the Germans.
Here's the thing: the U.S. can't negotiate a deal with Germany alone. It has to deal with the entire EU, since Germany is a member state. Merkel reminded Trump of this when they met in March, noting that trade agreements with the U.S. have "not always been all that popular in Germany either."
While Trump's irritation over German car sales isn't new – Trump told a German newspaper earlier this year he wanted a 35% import tax on BMWs assembled in Mexico to encourage manufacturers to move to the US
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/05/25/president-trump-calls-germans-very-bad-and-promises-stop-car-imports-report/102162310/
Here's the thing: the U.S. can't negotiate a deal with Germany alone. It has to deal with the entire EU, since Germany is a member state. Merkel reminded Trump of this when they met in March, noting that trade agreements with the U.S. have "not always been all that popular in Germany either."
While Trump's irritation over German car sales isn't new – Trump told a German newspaper earlier this year he wanted a 35% import tax on BMWs assembled in Mexico to encourage manufacturers to move to the US
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/05/25/president-trump-calls-germans-very-bad-and-promises-stop-car-imports-report/102162310/
It worked well in the 1930s. Without trade barriers the very expensive Danish Nimbus motorcycle would not have been competitive with imported ones. As the Nimbus factory exported virtually none of their motorcycles, there was no threat of being hit the same way.
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