https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-protectionist-stance-spooks-germanys-economy-1528977600
FRANKFURT—President Donald Trump’s trade threats aren’t only hurting feelings in Germany. They are beginning to weigh on the country’s economy.
The European Union’s largest economy, whose export-oriented vigor has kept the continent afloat for more than a decade, is cooling more rapidly than expected in what economists see as the early fallout from protectionist moves by the U.S.
The slowdown comes just as Europe has been gradually emerging from the economic hangover caused by the continent’s debt crisis in 2010.
After years of robust growth fueled by foreign demand for premium cars and engineering goods, Germany saw its annualized growth rate roughly fall by half in the first quarter of 2018. Exports have fallen in three of the first four months of the year, manufacturing orders are down and sentiment indicators are in free fall.
The weakness can’t be blamed on the U.S. president’s “America First” policies alone. A cold winter and a bad flu epidemic appear to have slackened growth earlier this year. But the bad news has been so persistent since then that economists are now looking for other explanations.
“It’s clear that concerns over protectionism and the more assertive foreign-policy stance of the U.S. have begun to have real economic implications,” said Oliver Rakau, a Frankfurt-based economist with Oxford Economics. CONTINUE AT SITE
