The spokesman for the Czech Chamber of Commerce Miroslav Diro has told the daily newspaper Pravo that the Czech automobile could be seriously damaged by import duties being considered by the American administration. He said that suppliers of automobile parts that export to the United States would be hit by the tariff as would their German car manufacturing clients that sell to the American market. “These protectionist measures would hit us indirectly through the export of parts from the Czech Republic to other EU countries that export their end product to the United States,” said Diro. His words were backed up by Zdeněk Petzl of the Automobile Industry Association. “If there’s a dramatic fall in sales to the USA because of import duties, it could hit the turnover on our market by 5 to 10 percent,” he said. Právo writes that Germany is the biggest exporter of cars to the United States, selling $20.8bn annually there.
