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Axles Of Evil?

Motor Trend

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September 2017

Axles Of Evil?

- Angus MacKenzie

Axles Of Evil?

“The Germans are bad, very bad. See the millions of cars they are selling in the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this.” It was a typical tweet friendly Donald Trump soundbite, made— according to Germany’s Der Spiegel and later confirmed as correct by White House economic adviser Gary Cohn—during a meeting with senior European Union officials.

Trump’s remarks were initially interpreted as an attack on the German people. But that was collateral damage: His real target, apparently, was Germany’s massive trade surplus with the U.S. “He didn’t say the Germans are behaving badly,” European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said in Sicily before the G7 Summit, reported The Washington Post. “He said we have a problem, as others do, with the German surplus.”

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