German exports

In the Brexit debate there was a lot of talk about Germany being anxious to avoid tariffs so they can continue to sell us their cars and I read today someone suggesting 750,000 jobs in German industry "depend" on UK imports.  This idea is advanced as an argument that the EU will be so desperate to sign a trade deal they will be falling over themselves.

This has a number of flaws I believe.  Firstly, the negotiations will not be conducted with the German car industry and countries like Romania and Lithuania which do little trade with us will have a veto.

Secondly, the British love German products in every sphere of manufactured good from kitchen appliances to power tools and of course, cars and trucks. This is unlikely to change even if tariffs are added.  Plenty of people will pay 10% (the EU tariff on cars) extra for a Mercedes.

Thirdly, it presupposes that the German factories are just ticking over and rely heavily on UK orders to survive. In all probability, they can sell every vehicle they make, if not in the UK, then elsewhere.

Finally, the Germans are masters at exporting and will easily develop new markets.  The UK should be much more worried about tariff and non tariff barriers on our exports since we are terrible at it (HERE) and not much better at manufacturing.  Germany has not had a trade deficit since 1951 and in 2015 it reached a record £200 Billion while we have run deficits every year since 1998 reaching a record this year of £12Bn in Q1 alone. See ONS Data HERE.

Let us not kid ourselves, the Germans will not be that desperate.