Trump slams German trade surplus as "very bad"

PanARMENIAN.Net - President Trump has gone on the attack again over Germany's huge trade surplus, CNN reports.

At a meeting with senior European Union officials in Brussels on Thursday, Trump said Germany was "very bad on trade," according to the president's top economic adviser Gary Cohn.

"He said they're very bad on trade but he doesn't have a problem with Germany," Cohn told reporters who traveled with Trump to a G7 summit in Sicily, Italy, on Friday, May 26.

A spokeswoman for Germany's economy ministry declined to comment on Trump's remarks, but they won't help his tricky relationship with Europe's leading power.

German media first reported that Trump had repeated previous criticism of the country over trade at a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Citing sources who participated in Thursday's meeting, German magazine Der Spiegel quoted Trump as saying: "The Germans are bad, very bad. Look at the millions of cars they're selling in the U.S. We will stop that."

A newspaper -- the Sueddeutsche Zeitung -- reported that Trump made clear that reducing the U.S. trade deficit was a top priority.

Germany's global exports were worth $270 billion more than its imports in 2016, the largest surplus on record. The U.S., by contrast, had a global trade deficit of more than $500 billion.

Trump believes that is evidence America is losing the global economic game. Its deficit in goods trade with Germany alone was worth $65 billion in 2016.

Germany argues that the size of its trade surplus is largely a consequence of factors beyond its control, such as the price of oil and the value of the euro, as well as the ability of its companies to compete on the world stage.

But it is sensitive to criticism about the surplus, which is sometimes raised by European officials too.

Merkel's government says it is taking action to boost domestic demand and imports by encouraging investment in Germany and raising wages and pensions.