Z The American President attacks aggressively aggressively Donald Trump the European Union: While he likes the European states, the EU is an institution to the detriment of the United States, he said just during a campaign meeting in the state of North Dakota. The French President Emmanuel Macron he allegedly a favorable “deal” offered, if this leads France from the EU. At the weekend, Trump compared the community with China and found them trading issues as “just as bad.”
What’s behind this escalation? Perhaps it is a new trade dispute that experts in Brussels have drawn up and presented to the US Secretary of Commerce. On eleven obviously controversial pages, they reckon, among other things, that the United States would harm itself first of all, should Trump actually impose tariffs on automobile imports, as he had promised, up to 20 percent. Between $ 13bn and $ 14bn, that puts pressure on American economic output, according to the letter from the internet portal “Polítco” cited. The tariffs would “hurt first and foremost the American economy,” says the analysis.
Resistance in America is growing
The Brussels experts also list the long-known: that European automobile companies manufacture tens of thousands of vehicles in America. That they export many automobiles produced in the United States and thus “contribute substantially to improving the US trade balance, which is a high priority for the government.” The German manufacturer BMW is the largest auto exporter in the United States – even ahead of the American companies Ford or General Motors.
Particularly explosive, however, and that is also part of the Brussels bill and something that Trump and his advisors should hardly like: If Trump levied 20 percent tariffs on cars, the United States threatened retaliatory measures EU and other trading partners of America, which concern US exports in the volume of approximately 300 billion dollar. Add to this a “further damage to the reputation” of the United States, quoted the “Financial Times” from the analysis. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will soon be traveling to Washington to talk with Trump about trade issues.
Not surprisingly, Trump seems to speak so indignantly to the EU. Above all, because not only are such bills going around, but also in America itself the resistance to these plans is growing. Above all, the automotive group General Motors now makes serious reservations against the intended car duties. Such protective tariffs threatened American jobs and could even force General Motors to shrink, is the quintessence of a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
Numerous companies, lobby organizations and private individuals issued critical statements over the weekend, including the top organizations of German industry, the car manufacturer BMW, most Asian manufacturers and American politicians. Resistance also comes from Trump’s own party. Numerous Republican senators have been critical of the plans. The governor of Alabama, Republican Kay Ellen Ivey, is particularly vehemently opposed to tariffs. They say they could harm companies that employ thousands of Alabama citizens and contribute billions to the state’s economy.
Since Mercedes Benz opened its first factory in Alabama in 1993, the state has become the third-largest auto site in the United States. The most important foreign customers for products from the United States are Canada, China, Germany, Mexico and Japan. All of these countries could be forced to pay Trump’s car duties. Thousands of workers may lose good jobs should exports go down, the governor warned.