BERLIN: Deep in the Bavarian countryside the modern factory buildings of Delo, a company of little more than 500 people, supply the glue and technology that binds around half of all the world’s mobile phones.
Like many other small and medium-sized companies in Germany’s heartlands known as the Mittelstand Delo provides parts and technical expertise that help make products consumed across the world. Like them, it is increasingly alarmed that its business model will come unstuck because of Donald Trump’s break with decades of US trade policy.
“We’ve invested a lot into the US and it would be a pity if some protectionism did come up,” said Robert Saller, managing director, referring to fears that the US president could increase trade barriers and jettison trade talks.
Other groups also express worries that Mr Trump will seek to reduce German sales into the US market.
“We’re concerned a lot about Trump’s policy of protectionism,” said Manfred Ritz, a spokesman for the VCI, a trade body that represents almost 1,700 companies in the chemicals industry. “We need open markets. Our business model in Germany is exports.”
Such anxieties have broader consequences for Europe as a whole.
