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Trump reportedly wants to ban German cars from America

But more than 800,000 of those German cars were built in the US last year.

Steven Ewing Former managing editor
Steven Ewing spent his childhood reading car magazines, making his career as an automotive journalist an absolute dream job. After getting his foot in the door at Automobile while he was still a teenager, Ewing found homes on the mastheads at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog and Motor1.com before joining the CNET team in 2018. He has also served on the World Car Awards jury. Ewing grew up ingrained in the car culture of Detroit -- the Motor City -- before eventually moving to Los Angeles. In his free time, Ewing loves to cook, binge trash TV and play the drums.
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Donald Trump

Donald Trump, who is said to have owned several Mercedes-Benz vehicles, allegedly wants to ban German cars from US roads.

 Alex Wong / Getty Images

President Donald Trump is reportedly threatening to ban German cars from US roads.

Trump reportedly told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he wanted to banish all German cars from American roads. Germany is currently the top European auto exporter, with more than 650,000 vehicles being imported to the US in 2017. A report from Germany's Wirtschaftswoche magazine cited several unnamed European and US diplomats familiar with these alleged plans, according to Automotive News.

But if Trump wants to move forward with this plan, it won't be as easy as implementing a simple ban. If he were to restrict the direct import of cars from Germany, this would still leave a number of exclusions. The G-Class, for example, is built at Magna-Steyr's plant in Austria. builds the Golf in Mexico (for now).

There's also the fact that a number of German automakers already have huge manufacturing presences in the US. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen currently build cars on US soil. Automotive News says German automakers built 804,000 cars in the US last year.

A ban like this would huge ramifications for the US auto industry. But Trump is known for saying (and tweeting) things he can't follow through on, so don't write off your next Mercedes purchase just yet.