{"id":55618,"date":"2025-08-09T19:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T19:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/55618\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T19:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T19:47:11","slug":"falling-us-imports-show-germanys-economy-is-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/55618\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling US imports show Germany\u2019s economy is broken"},"content":{"rendered":"

Germany\u2019s economic woes are deepening. After sales from all its major car companies<\/a> plummeted in the first half of 2025, exports to the US appear to be the next item on the chopping block. US imports from Germany dropped<\/a> for the third consecutive month amid an ongoing industrial slowdown, with shipments to the US declining by 2.1% to \u20ac11.8 billion, marking their lowest level since February 2022.<\/p>\n

Germany last held the title of \u201cglobal export champion\u201d (Exportweltmeister) in 2008, when it topped the world in dollar-denominated exports<\/a>. At the time, Berlin enjoyed cheap Russian energy, reliable nuclear power, a robust industrial base, and booming demand from China. But none of it was built to last. A mix of shifting geopolitics \u2014 notably the Russo-Ukrainian war \u2014 and self-inflicted wounds, such as shutting down 20GW of nuclear capacity in service of green ideology, has thrown Germany\u2019s economic model into crisis.<\/p>\n

This is now compounded by a US administration that wants to rewrite the rules of global trade, reestablishing itself as both a major manufacturer and exporter. While it is too soon to tell whether Washington\u2019s strategy will pay off, the fallout is already visible elsewhere. The German model was built on running trade surpluses in what the economist Michael Every calls<\/a> \u201cMerkelcantilism\u201d, a play on the former chancellor\u2019s name. It described a new form of modern mercantilism, an economic approach that aimed to maximise exports while keeping imports and domestic consumption low.<\/p>\n

Germany presented itself as a champion of free trade \u2014 but that wasn\u2019t the full story. While it avoided tariffs and other trade barriers, its export-driven model relied on suppressing<\/a> domestic demand to maximise output for foreign markets. For years, this went largely unexamined, but the reality is clear: German policy often came at the expense of its own working class. The Hartz labour market reforms<\/a> (2003\u20132005) gutted worker protections, slashed unemployment benefits, and created Europe\u2019s largest low-wage sector through mini-jobs and weakened collective bargaining. Between 2003 and 2008, the wage share of the working class\u2019s national income fell<\/a> from 67% to 61%, while real wages flatlined for over a decade \u2014 despite 16% productivity growth. In effect, austerity not only provided fiscal consolidation, but also served as a deliberate tool of trade policy.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s economic model depends on export markets, but those are now drying up. China is offloading<\/a> its industrial overcapacity into Europe, and the US is decoupling not just from Beijing, but increasingly from Berlin. That leaves the EU, yet its planned ban on internal combustion engines offers little hope for Germany\u2019s car industry. The global economic order is shifting, and Germany is dangerously unprepared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s economic woes are deepening. After sales from all its major car companies plummeted in the first half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[30392,84,1294,591,30393,11943,30394,145,4968,4969,229,154,56,157,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-55618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-angela-merkel","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-exportweltmeister","13":"tag-films","14":"tag-free-trade","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-non-classifiu00e9e","17":"tag-optional","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}