US ‘will fail if it tries to split Europe over trade‘, says German minister

FRANKFURT AM MAIN: US President Donald Trump “will not succeed” in dividing European nations against one another over trade, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier warned Sunday ahead of a visit to Washington. In the European Union “we are a customs union and act collectively. It cannot be in the interest of the US government to divide Europe, nor will it succeed,” Altmaier told German business daily Handelsblatt. For the close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, top of the agenda at meetings in the US capital will be Trump’s planned tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminium. Meanwhile, countries like China that stand accused of flooding global markets with cheap steel would be “laughing on the sidelines”, he added. In a statement Saturday, Merkel’s office said the German leader had spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping.