‘Germany must not bow to Trump threats’

BERLIN: Germany cannot afford to give in to intimidation and threats of protectionism from US President-elect Donald Trump, and to do so even once would invite repeated bullying, a key conservative ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.

Trump warned German car companies that he would impose a border tax of 35 percent on vehicles imported to the US market, in a newspaper interview published on Monday .

Norbert Roettgen, head of Germany’s foreign affairs committee in parliament, said Germany must stay true to its values.

The country is one of the world’s leading exporting nations, getting nearly half its gross domestic product from exports.

“The smart thing to do is not to yield to intimidation and threats,” Roettgen told a small group of foreign reporters when asked about German industry’s readiness to stand up to Trump.

“If you take this path once, you will become the object of threats and intimidation,” said Roettgen, a leader in Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

“And I don’t think that makes sense either for Germany as a whole or for individual companies.”