The US benefits from the Ukraine war because Germany has to buy natural gas from the United States. That could significantly damage our economy, says left-wing politician Klaus Ernst in the ntv podcast “Wirtschaft Welt
Politically, transatlantic friendship has been making a comeback since the war in Ukraine: the USA and Europe are imposing sanctions on Russia in order to persuade President Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine. But what about the economy between the two countries? For Klaus Ernst, member of the Bundestag, it is clear that Germany and the USA will be “blatant competitors” economically in the future. And he sees the German economy on the losing side.
The high energy prices in Europe are an enormous competitive disadvantage for German companies, states Ernst in the ntv podcast “Wirtschaft Welt
The former trade unionist fears reactions, particularly in energy-intensive sectors such as glass production: “Companies are already migrating and trying to expand existing pillars in the USA.” And so Ernst is worried about German jobs and expects a “shift in economic conditions that we can’t even imagine right now”.
Economic expert Simone Menne disagrees. As President of “AmCham Germany”, she does not see the USA as a competitor, but as a strong and important business partner. For the future, she is clearly counting on expanding cooperation between the two countries. “We must not promote protectionist tendencies in Europe or in the USA,” explains Menne. A free trade agreement is right, but isolation is the wrong way.
US investments on German soil are also important to Simone Menne – for example the Tesla plant in Grünheide and the plans of the US chip manufacturer Intel for Magdeburg. “Let’s encourage investments on both sides of the Atlantic,” was her clear appeal in the podcast. This could result in win-win situations for both states.
