President Donald Trump has expanded his focus on the automotive industry beyond U.S. and Japanese carmakers, and now appears to be targeting the Germans.
While attending a NATO summit in Brussels with a host of top EU leaders, Trump is reported to have hit out at Germany and suggested he will attempt to stop German-built vehicles being sold in the U.S.
“The Germans are bad, very bad… Look at the millions of cars they sell in the US. We will stop this,” Trump said, Jalopnik reports.
It is impossible to say exactly how Trump intends to reduce or entirely stop German cars being sold in the U.S, but his proposed tax of 35 per cent on imported cars could go some way to limiting sales and encouraging German manufacturers to build more of their vehicles locally.
BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen all have manufacturing facilities in the United States, with BMW’s Spartanburg factory being its largest, as well as the one responsible for building most of its SUV models.
PHOTO GALLERY
