Why are there no fleets of Chevrolet Suburbans roaring through the city centre of Munich? Why are there so many more Minis or Audi A1s cruising along the streets instead of this model, which is half a meter longer than a BMW 5 Series?

If you think that the answer is obvious, given the narrowness of European old towns and the question is therefore superfluous, then unfortunately this only shows that you do not meet the current requirements profile for the office of US President. Because Donald Trump does formulate these types of questions. He has a different answer than you. And this has consequences for Europe.

What happened? Last week he asked journalists this rhetorical question: „How many Chevrolets or Fords do you see in the centre of Munich?“ Now, to justify the answer, one could talk about parking spaces, fuel consumption, questions of taste, equipment and safety features, CO2 fleet specifications, and a lack of repair shops. However, Trump is not the type who is interested in details. He knows his way around the world without such frills. His answer to the Munich question is very simple concerning EU politicians and US brands: „They make it impossible to sell cars in the European Union.“

Never mind that General Motors largely withdrew the Chevrolet brand from Germany before Trump's first term in office. Only the Corvette sports car and the Camaro variant are still available. Trump doesn't care about that.

This simplistic opinion is bad for the local car industry. The fact that Mexico and Canada have now obtained a postponement of their tariffs increases the pressure even further – because Trump will want to show in the Brussels case that he is serious about trade with partners. He also needs revenue that he can use independently of the US Congress. It doesn't matter that many German brand cars are assembled locally in the USA, and that Tesla has many customers here.

Perhaps the EU lobbyists should fill a few parking spaces around the „Bayerischer Hof“ hotel in downtown Munich with US rental cars. That's where the security conference is taking place this week. Fox News will then broadcast the relevant „TV footage“ of the conference venue to people's homes. This usually works better than any fact sheet. A tragedy.