The perils of an unbalanced economy

[Suff]

Are clearly shown by Germany this month. Their economy is so heavily manufacturing with export being the key factor, that the 4% drop in orders last month have got some investors on the run.

As we can see, 5 out of the last 6 months German manufacturing orders have fallen.



It is not, entirely, the really great thing it is made out to be. Most of the turbulence has been because of Trump. However I'm willing to bet that a large chunk is also to do with UK purchasing managers backing away from long term commitments with Germany when they don't know just how big a tax problem they may face going forward.

The UK is Germany's third largest export market. For the Germany, the UK does not make the top 10 of countries they import from....

More pain to go around and a large manufacturing base is not saving Germany from the pain.

[cromwell]

Germany is in trouble if Trump decides to wallop German cars with bigger taxes.
America is a huge consuming economy; it has huge power and Trump is shaking up the established order.
He who pays the piper, I suppose.

[Suff]

Yep, so are we as far as Germany is concerned.

Export in Billion Euro

Rank Country Export (2016)

1. United States 107
2. France 101
3. United Kingdom 86
4. Netherlands 79
5. China 76

Sadly hard to get the same numbers for the same year. In 2015 we bought £60bn from Germany and sold them £30bn.

That makes Germany especially vulnerable to issues with the UK trade. Double the vulnerability the UK see's. They are almost exactly the same relationship with the US, €107bn exports and €58bn imports in 2016. It is why threats from Trump are so effective. Why the EU knuckled under in less than two months.