Merkel Pushes Back on U.S. Claims That German Cars Are a Threat

(Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel took President Donald Trump to task before an audience of senior security officials in Munich, calling his administration’s suggestion that European autos are a threat to U.S. national security a “shock.”

In a pointed defense of multilateral institutions ahead of a speech by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at the Munich Security Conference, the German leader called for global trade and cooperation. The biggest BMW plant is in South Carolina, she said, not in the carmaker’s homeland of Bavaria in southern Germany.

“Look, we’re proud of our cars,” Merkel said Saturday. “We’re allowed to be. And these cars are built in the United States of America.”

“If these cars, which are no less a threat than those built in Bavaria, are suddenly a national security threat to the U.S., then that’s a shock to us,” Merkel said, to loud applause.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.