Trump threatened carmaker BMW with a border levy if it builds a plant in Mexico. Germany could take the United States to court if Washington goes ahead with plans to tax imports, Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said Friday, hours before Chancellor Angela Merkel's first meeting with Donald Trump. "I'm betting partly on reason and partly on the courts" to prevent a damaging trade war, Zypries told Deutschlandfunk public radio. But Germany says that its products are simply better and that the US should focus on producing more competitive manufacturers. Zypries predicted that Trump's advisors would warn him that "the Americans would be cutting off their nose to spite their face if they slap such taxes on imports."

Source: The Local March 17, 2017 09:22 UTC