Trump Told American Cars Need To Be Better If Germans Are Actually Going To Buy Them

In response to criticism that Germans don't buy enough American cars, German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel had a rather effective answer...
Trump Told American Cars Need To Be Better If Germans Are Actually Going To Buy Them

Donald Trump isn’t even in the White House yet, but already he seems to be having a profound effect on the car industry. We’ve already seen Ford can its plans to build a new plant in Mexico following criticism from the President Elect, and he’s talked of slapping massive import taxes on cars built outside of the USA more than once.

His latest target is BMW, via an interview with The Times and Bild. While blasting German chancellor Angela Merkel for her handling of the refugee crisis, Trump also proposed the idea of a 35 per cent import tariff on German-built BMWs. The mere talk of such a tax dropped BMW’s shares by 0.85 per cent, Daimler’s by 1.54 per cent and VW’s by 1.07 per cent, The Guardian reports.

Trump also criticised what he called the “one-way street” of German cars in the US vs American cars in Germany. “If you go down Fifth Avenue everyone has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isn’t that the case? How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not very many, maybe none at all,” he said.

German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel hit back at Trump's comments about the German car industry, and Angela Merkel's refugee policy
German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel hit back at Trump's comments about…

This morning though, German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (above) hit back at Trump’s Merkel criticisms. Most amusing was what he had to say about that “one-way street”. When asked what Trump should do to get more Germans buying American cars, his answer was: “Build better cars”. If that doesn’t qualify as a mic drop, I’m not sure what does.

Responding to the tariff threats, Gabriel pointed out that BMW’s largest factory is actually in South Carolina. He added:

“The US car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren’t being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35 per cent tariff. I believe it would make the US car industry weaker, worse and above all more expensive. I would wait and see what the Congress has to say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite of Trump.”

Comments

Kyle Ashdown

I was reading Donald Trump’s autobiography, but for some reason I kept getting stuck on Chapter 11…

01/16/2017 - 15:07 |
318 | 4

What’s in there?

01/16/2017 - 15:10 |
42 | 6

What you did there, I see it.

01/16/2017 - 15:12 |
6 | 0

😂😂

01/16/2017 - 15:17 |
6 | 0

Was it the 9th circulation?

01/16/2017 - 15:18 |
10 | 0

Lmao

01/16/2017 - 15:27 |
8 | 0
Joshua Lue

Germans buy German cars because they are both clean organized and efficient. Its the norm to buy German cars in Britain too.

01/16/2017 - 15:08 |
64 | 4

There’s a huge demand for the 2015 Mustang though, so if you’d bump up American Build Quality and mpg a bit you’d easily get more variety in Europe

01/16/2017 - 16:46 |
26 | 0

Until they got slapped with the vw diesel scandal…

01/16/2017 - 17:41 |
12 | 0
German Perfectionist

You once wrote Angela Merkal

01/16/2017 - 15:14 |
8 | 2
Roadster / Tail Red

#Roasted

01/16/2017 - 15:16 |
20 | 6
Marco Allasio

Mhm… How many american made cars are on sale in Europe?

01/16/2017 - 15:16 |
6 | 2

Not many. Most germans get american performance cars trough dedicated business’ like “Geiger Cars”.

01/16/2017 - 15:19 |
22 | 0

Even in Malaysia, American cars are very rare. Only Ford and Chevrolet is available but most that were sold are probably 1:10000. It is as rare as China made cars. Most cars on the road are either Malaysian’s own brand, Japanese(a lot), Korean, German and Swedish.

01/16/2017 - 15:56 |
6 | 2
Carl Johnson 1

I dont think trump has any idea how the global ecomony works at all. Also he has yet to hit the british,swedish,italians on cars not built in america. Also there is no one way street of german cars in the u.s all i see is american,jdm, and euro. Also of course everyone who is rich owns a mercedes benz its the rich persons car. Your not going to see a rich person with a chevy, buick , or a lincoln if the germans do luxury the best.

01/16/2017 - 15:32 |
42 | 4

to be fair,rich people don’t always buy german cars. just look at the driveways in the hollywood hills. it’s like 90% toyotas.

01/16/2017 - 16:41 |
16 | 0

Well he only cares about the rich people and completley ignores the other 99%…

01/17/2017 - 00:07 |
2 | 2

Also Germans buy german cars. Thats totally normal in europe, french buy french and italian buy italian. Also the example Chevrolet is not a good one. They did sell well in Germany but the problem was that Opel, a GM brand, lost their market because chevrolet was an Opel just for 5k less. So in 2014 they took Chevrolet out of the european market, so that Opel can write black numbers.

01/17/2017 - 10:06 |
2 | 0
Mr.Beam

To: Trump
From: Gabriel

01/16/2017 - 15:34 |
100 | 2
hotch370z (Z Guy)

American cars generally do suck

01/16/2017 - 15:36 |
6 | 8
Antiprius

“35% import tariff on BMWs”
As a proud BMW fan, can I just say: For the good of the free world, please jump off a bridge, Donald.

01/16/2017 - 15:36 |
76 | 6

Now if you want OEM BMW parts they’ll be more expensive…

01/16/2017 - 15:41 |
26 | 2

Bmw fanboy from Canada here.. I fear for the next 4 years deeply.

01/16/2017 - 17:26 |
16 | 4

BMWs are so cheap in the States that there would be countries in the world with a far more expensive BMWs even with the tariff

01/16/2017 - 18:00 |
8 | 0

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