Germany is sucking the EU members dry thru its mercantile policies. Imagine, for example, what would happen to the EU economy, to the rest of the world — and to U.S. export sales in general — if Germany were not living off its fellow Europeans with a massive 164.4 billion euro trade surplus.
That German surplus is stifling the economic growth in the rest of Europe, because it is a deficit for countries trading with Germany. You can think of those 164.4 billion euros as a large wealth transfer to Germany. Indeed, it is a structural foundation of Germany's export-driven economy, where sales to the rest of the world account for nearly a half of German GDP (compared with 14 percent in the U.S. case).
What Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the world need here is a radical change of German economic policies. Germany should be generating more growth from domestic demand to give an opportunity to its trade partners to sell more of their goods and services on German markets. That would boost intra-European growth and create opportunities for more American sales to Europe — its largest overseas customer.
It’s inevitable the Germany will become less competitive in industry because so much of its energy comes from wind turbines and solar panels, which increases the cost of production.
Meanwhile, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and other European countries have all greatly increased sales of their lumber to the US. Now, we can see why. They can not sell it at home because their economy sucks.