US President Donald Trump would like to impose a total import ban on German luxury cars in the US. This was written by the German weekly WirtschaftsWoche (in Italian, "The economic week"), which cites various European and US diplomatic sources.
Last month, The Donald would have spoken about this measure with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to whom he would have said he wanted to prevent Mercedes from circulating on Fifth Avenue in New York.
The German newspaper's article, quoted by CNBC, was published less than two weeks after the US Department of Commerce launched an investigation into car imports to verify the existence of a "threat to US national security" . An investigation that could end with the decision to impose duties of up to 25% to protect national security, as has already happened for aluminum and steel imports.
German automakers and the White House have not yet commented on the WirtschaftsWoche article.
In the meantime, however, more and more nervousness is leaking from Berlin: "To be clear: we need to prevent protectionism and isolationism from taking over free trade," said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
According to the provisions issued by the US authorities, increases in duties on the import of European steel and aluminum are about to take place. But trading partners "might have an interest in stopping and rewinding the clocks," Maas suggested.
Meanwhile, China has reiterated its desire to avoid an escalation of the trade confrontation with the USA and in this context has announced that from 25 July it will halve customs duties on a whole series of imported products, ranging from clothing and footwear to cosmetics, household appliances but also fish. This after Beijing had decided in recent days to lower duties on important cars from 15% to XNUMX%.
Meanwhile, from midnight today in America to six in the morning in Italy tomorrow, the duties of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum will also apply for the EU, Canada and Mexico. This was stated by Wilbur Ross, the US secretary of Commerce, in a call with journalists. The EU and the two nations with which the US are partners in NAFTA had been temporarily exempted from customs tariffs, taken on March 23, until June XNUMX. An initial deadline set for May XNUMX had been postponed by a month.
