It’s a make-or-break moment for Germany’s economy. Trump’s tariffs won’t help

When German voters go to the polls Sunday, the country’s moribund economy — and promises to fix it — will be front of mind. But Donald Trump’s looming import tariffs will make that daunting task even harder for the new government.

When German voters go to the polls Sunday, the country’s moribund economy — and promises to fix it — will be front of mind. But Donald Trump’s looming import tariffs will make that daunting task even harder for the new government. Failure would be costly. If the parties most likely to form a new governing coalition do not manage to kick-start economic growth, “they know who’s going to win the next elections, and this would be the far-right AfD,” said Carsten Brzeski, a senior economist at pan-European bank ING, echoing others’ fears about the Alternative for Germany party. The German economy, the world’s third-largest, has barely grown since the pandemic. It shrank both in 2023 and last year, posting the first back-to-back annual contractions since the early 2000s. And this year, it is set to grow by a paltry 0.3%, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts. It wasn’t always like this. Between around 2005 and 2019, the export-oriented economy was thriving, propelled by cheap natural gas from Russia, an imports-hungry China and a relatively frictionless global trading environment.