ANGELA Merkel’s “increasing” trade surplus in Germany could force US President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on European Union (EU) steel and a “quota on automobiles”, it has been claimed.
Berlin’s annual trade surplus could be as high as €80billion (£70billion) which has encouraged Professor Heiner Flassbeck, the country’s former state-secretary of finance, to declare that Angela Merkel is “cooking the books”.
Prof Flassbeck accused Germany of “cooking the books so that the surplus does not look as if it is increasing” as Mrs Merkel’s nation was accused of understating the true size of its current trade surplus in a bid to deflect growing criticism from around the world.
The US President last year said Germany was “very bad on trade” as he pointed at the “million of cars” Germany sold to the US.
The President was reported as saying at the time: “Terrible. We will stop this.”