Too much melodrama on this issue.
“But the ambitious nature of the German auto sector should not be underestimated, he warned, as firms would most likely ramp up production in the US to try to avoid tariffs.”
How would this be a problem.?
This is what the MAGA agenda voted for. Not 30 more years of globalist “free trade” crap !
Beginning back in the late 1960’s politicians (liberals and RINOs) gave away the US auto industry for personal gain, in pursit of a misguided globalist agenda, or both.
Volkswagen was the only foreign manufacturer with a significant US market and most Japanese cars were looked on as quirky oddities.
There was a time when US auto companies built 75% of the vehicles for the entire world.
Now they don’t even build 75% of the vehicles for America.
Seems unlikely modest tariffs on Euro vehicles would impact US sales much. American consumers are already willing to pay a premium price for what they believe are premium vehicles from Euro manufacturers.
Usually left out is that Euro-made vehicles sold in the US are cheaper than the same models sold in Europe, because of high taxes there. Euros protect their market from cheap American imports.
We need a tariff to match Germany’s tariff, hidden by the term VAT, on our goods.
No useful numbers, here.
I thought our tariff on EUropean cars was 2.5%, while EUrope’s on ours was over 10%.
So..............WTF?
Isn’t funny how quick the EU is to threaten retaliation with new tariffs of their own when all Trump is proposing is to start doing to them what they have been doing to us for decades. Only the idiotic “leaders” in the USA believe in the fairly tale hoax of “free trade”.
I think that is an expression from some sport they like to play in Europe.